Meg considers herself a writer. She dreams of writing a “real” book, but instead she is forced to do “commissioned” fiction—she must pay for a house where she can’t breathe from dampness, and also support a boyfriend whose relationship has long reached a dead end. On top of that, she falls in love with another man: he could be her father’s age, and besides, he isn’t free. But everything suddenly changes when a book by psychoanalyst Kelsey Newman is at her fingertips. If we believe his theory about the end of the universe, then all of us will live forever. Meg can’t stop thinking about Newman’s words, and they begin to affect her life in inexplicable ways.
Her first novel was published by the English writer Scarlett Thomas at age 26. Then she released two more, and the newspaper The Independent on Sunday included her in a prestigious list of the twenty best young authors. Her penultimate book, “The Lumas’ Delusion,” became an international bestseller. “Our Tragic Universe” is Scarlett Thomas’s new novel.