Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Fiction & Related items

THE INFINITE FUTURE

Tim Wirkus

An exhilarating, original novel, set in Brazil, Idaho, and outer space, about an obsessive librarian, a down-at-heel author, and a Mormon historian who go on the hunt for a mystical, life-changing book--and find it.

The Infinite Future is a mindbending novel that melds two page-turning books in one. First, we meet three broken people, joined by an obsession with a forgotten Brazilian science-fiction author named Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie. There's Danny, a writer who's been scammed by a shady literary award committee; Sergio, journalist turned sub-librarian in São Paulo; and Harriet, an excommunicated Mormon historian in Salt Lake City, who years ago conducted a correspondence with the reclusive Brazilian writer. The motley trio sets off to discover his identity, and whether his fabled masterpiece--never published--actually exists. Did his investigations into the true nature of the universe yield something so enormous that his mind was blown for good?

In the second half, Wirkus gives us...the lost masterpiece itself, the actual text of The Infinite Future, Salgado-MacKenzie's wonderfully weird magnum opus. The two halves connect in surprising and delightful ways to form a totally unique reading experience. Part academic satire, part science-fiction, and part book-lover's quest, this wholly original novel captures the heady way that stories inform and mirror our lives.
AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR: Tim's first book--about Mormon missionaries-turned-detectives--was the winner of the Association for Mormon Letters Best Novel Award in 2104 and a finalist for the Shamus Award. He won the 2013Quarterly Westnovella contest, and his short fiction has been selected forBest American Non-Required Reading (2013).

POP CULTURE SAVVY: A unique blend of mystery, science fiction, academic satire, and more, this book embraces genres and dazzles on every page like the best of Chabon and Lethem.

WELL-CONNECTED NEWCOMER: As a USC graduate student, he has studied with Aimee Bender, T.C. Boyle, and Percival Everett, all of whom championed his first book.

INTERESTING AUTHOR STORY: His experience as a Mormon missionary in Brazil is the jumping-off point for The Infinite Future. He's already been featured by the L.A. Timesfor his first novel.

Tim Wirkus is the author of one previous novel, City of Brick and Shadow Tyrus Books, 2014), which was a finalist for the Shamus Award and the winner of the Association for Mormon Letters Best Novel Award. His short fiction has appeared inThe Best American Non-Required Reading, Subtropics, Cream City Review, Weird Fiction Review, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. His novella, Sandy Downs, won the 2013 Quarterly West novella contest. He's currently a doctoral candidate in the University of Southern California's Creative Writing and Literature Program.
Residence: Irvine, CA Hometown: Salt Lake City, UT

Available products
Book Published 2018-01-16 by Penguin Press
Book Published 2018-01-16 by Penguin Press

Comments

Tim Wirkus has channeled the ghost of Laurence Sterne and the imagination of René Magritte. From the foreword on I was taken by this novel. Entertaining, fun and very, very smart, the story is everywhere at once, but never lost. This is a house of mirrors worth entering.

Brilliant, playful, and profound,The Infinite Futureoffers its readers stories within stories within stories, all of them thrilling and wise. Tim Wirkus has written a strange and beautiful magic trick of a book, and I was enthralled. I loved it.

The Infinite Future is uniquely structured, and uniquely pleasurable. Again and again it changes the terms of its telling—wrapping stories within stories and narrators within narrators; enclosing the mystical in the earthly and the fantastic in the realistic....Wirkus has a gift for maintaining a story's equilibrium, and with each new narrative layer he explores, I found myself instantly reinvested in the proceedings.

Tim Wirkus has worked wonders. The Infinite Future is an astonishing feat: a religious text wrapped in a science fiction yarn wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a road trip wrapped in a snarky collegiate literary feud. At every turn it surprises and delights, and in the end proves itself a deeply moving examination of what it means to tell -- and more importantly, be told – stories.