As She Climbed Across the TablePhilip is in love with Alice. As the novel opens, he is beginning to lose her. Not to another man, as he fears, but to, literally, nothing. Alice is a physicist, and a team at the University where both she and Philip work has created a hole, a vacuum, a doorway of nothingness inside the laboratory. They call it " Lack." Alice becomes obsessed with Lack, as Philip is obsessed by Alice. The novel is at the same time an astute and wise portrait of unrequited love (albeit of a very unusual kind) a hilarious academic parody, a novel of ideas and a social satire. It is utterly original, but in the school of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Katherine Dunn, and David Foster Wallace. Passion, humor, yearning and knowledge, blended together in a suspenseful love story that could be characterized as " American Magical Realism." |
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Common terms and phrases
Alice Alice's aneurysm anymore apartment arms blind blind men blindsight Braxia breath bubble building campus cats chair closed couch Cynthia Jalter dark dark matter dear fellow door drink eggnog elevator empty Engstrand Evan and Garth eyes face false vacuum feel felt floor glass guess hair hallway hand head heard heart inside kiss knees knew Lack Lack's chamber Lack's table leaned legs light lips looked mean mouth Muzak never night nodded observation room Okay paper particles pay phone Philip phosphenes physicists physics facility pomegranate Professor Coombs Professor X pulled science police silence sleep slid slip smelled smiled Soft Soft's sound stared stepped stood stop supercollider sure talk tell therapy There's thing thought took Tooth trying turned understand UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN voice void wait walked watch What's window woman worried wrong