The End of Mr. Y - Paperback

by Scarlett Thomas (Author)

A cursed book sends a young woman on a philosophical journey through an alternate dimension in this "stylish and dizzying" novel by the author of PopCo (New York Times).

Graduate student Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas, the mysterious author of The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel goes down an interdimensional rabbit hole of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. And to make matters worse, the CIA is onto her.

Following in Mr. Y's footsteps, Ariel swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere: a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination?

Back Jacket

Ingenious and original. A cracking good yarn, fizzing with intelligence. -- Philip Pullman

If you knew this book was cursed, would you read it?
When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookstore, she can t believe her eyes. Copies are exceedingly rare, and everyone who has ever read it including its author, Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas-- has disappeared.
Ariel can t resist the promise in the book s history and its pages, and so steps into a thrilling adventure of time, space, love, death, and everything in between.

"Smart [and] stylish." -- International Herald Tribune

"Enormously ambitious and satisfying. It overflows with love for books not just as beautiful artefacts and repositories of secret knowledge, but as gateways into parallel universes." -- Time Out London

Scarlett Thomas is the author of Bright Young Things, Going Out, PopCo, and Our Tragic Universe. ------ORIGINAL 2006 EDITIONIf you knew this book were cursed, would you read it?
Ariel Manto has a fascination with The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read maybe because it's cursed and everyone related to it (the author; various book collectors; Ariel s doctoral advisor, Saul Burlem) disappears. But suddenly she discovers a rare copy in a used bookstore. Following in Mr. Y s footsteps, she falls into a trance and steps into the Troposphere a wonderland of an alternate dimension where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. And so Ariel launches into a heart-racing, brain-teasing, time-twisting adventure of science, faith, consciousness, death, and everything in between.
But what about the curse? Did Burlem read Mr. Y just before he vanished? Did these scary men in gray suits have anything to do with it? And now that Ariel understands the Troposphere--and her place in it will she be able to save the world and still go back to it?

SCARLETT THOMAS is the author of PopCo. She was named one of the twenty best young British writers by the Independent on Sunday in 2001 and Writer of the Year at the 2002 Elle Style Awards. She teaches writing at the University of Kent and lives in Canterbury. "