The Future Future

Adam Thirlwell at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes ADAM THIRLWELL—author of Lurid and Cute—for a discussion of his latest novel The Future Future. He will be joined in conversation by VALERIA LUISELLI—author of Lost Children Archive.

About The Future Future

It’s the eighteenth century, and Celine is in trouble. She’s eighteen. Her husband is mostly absent. Her parents are elsewhere. And somewhere men are inventing stories about her—about her affairs, her sexuality, her orgies and addictions and assignations. All these stories are lies, but the ordinary public loves them—spreading them like a plague. And Celine watches as her name becomes a celebrity symbol for everything rotten in the world.

This is a universe of saturation and corruption, of lavish parties and private salons, of purified guava and raki, of tulle and satin and sex, but also of revolution and resistance. It’s a world ruled by men, all of whom are high on genocide, colonial expansion, forest redevelopment, political theory, violence against women, and, above all, language.

As France moves through its revolutions and the earth whirls around the sun, Celine and her young friends band together against evil and history in search of justice, truth, and beauty.

Adam Thirlwell’s The Future Future is set in 1775 and in the present moment; in Europe and America and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and, briefly, on the moon. Dazzlingly inventive, hilarious, supermodern, and blindingly bright, it follows one woman on an urgently contemporary quest to clear her name and change the world.

Praise for The Future Future

“The Future Future weaves together so many different wisps of reality, creating something radically beautiful. Here, we see the celestial and the political sharing the same plane, inventing wondrous new ways of understanding history, friendship and time.” ―Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour

“A book filled with imaginative leaps, brave decisions and tiny details that give delight.” ―Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician

“Sex, revolution and death in eighteenth-century France and America, described in the language of the future, and featuring an astonishing visit to the moon. A dazzling performance, unlike anything else you’ll read this (or any other) year.” ―Salman Rushdie, author of Victory City