The Future Future

A Novel

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Oct 17 2023 | Archive Date Nov 30 2023

Description

Short-listed for the Goldsmiths Prize
Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction

A wild story of female friendship, language, and power, from France to colonial America to the moon, from 1775 to this very moment: a historical novel like no other.

It’s the eighteenth century, and Celine is in trouble. Her husband is mostly absent. Her parents are elsewhere. And meanwhile men are inventing stories about her—about her affairs, her sexuality, her orgies and addictions. All these stories are lies, but the public loves them and spreads them like a virus. Celine can only watch as her name becomes a symbol for everything rotten in society.

This is a world of decadence and saturation, of lavish parties and private salons, of tulle and satin and sex and violence. It’s also one ruled by men—high on colonial genocide, natural destruction, crimes against women, and, above all, language. To survive, Celine and her friends must band together in search of justice, truth, and beauty.

Fantastical, funny, and blindingly bright, Adam Thirlwell’s The Future Future follows one woman on an urgently contemporary quest to clear her name and change the world.

Short-listed for the Goldsmiths Prize
Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction

A wild story of female friendship, language, and power, from France to colonial America to the moon, from 1775...


A Note From the Publisher

Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. The author of three previous novels, his work has been translated into thirty languages. His essays appear in The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, and he is an advisory editor of The Paris Review. His awards include a Somerset Maugham Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has twice been selected by Granta as one of its Best of Young British Novelists.

Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. The author of three previous novels, his work has been translated into thirty languages. His essays appear in The New York Review of Books and the London...


Advance Praise

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

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...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780374607616
PRICE $28.00 (USD)
PAGES 352

Available on NetGalley

NetGalley Shelf App (EPUB)
Send to Kindle (EPUB)
Download (EPUB)

Average rating from 21 members


Featured Reviews

The Future Future by Adam Thirlwell is a truly unique and inventive historical novel that takes readers on a wild ride through time and space. Set in the eighteenth century, the novel follows Celine, a woman who finds herself the subject of scandalous rumors and lies spread by men who seek to control her. Thirlwell's writing is vivid and sensual, bringing to life a world of lavish parties and salons, of tulle and satin and sex. But this is also a world of revolution and resistance, where men rule with violence and language.

As Celine and her friends band together against evil and history, the novel takes readers on a journey through time and space, from France to colonial America to the moon. Thirlwell's language is dazzlingly inventive and blindingly bright, and his humor and modern sensibility make The Future Future a pleasure to read.

Ultimately, The Future Future is a novel about power, language, and the struggle for justice and truth in a world ruled by men. Thirlwell's characters are complex and compelling, and their quest for beauty and change feels urgent and contemporary. This is a novel like no other, and readers who enjoy inventive, boundary-pushing historical fiction will not want to miss it.

Was this review helpful?

Readers who liked this book also liked: