North, Emet
9780063394568, 0063394561-Subrights
Paperback
 
For fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Kelly Link, a profoundly imaginative debut novel set in numerous universes, which follows a queer physicist’s search for belonging across time and space.
“Haunting and hopeful, precise and lingering as the pressure of a finger in a delicate, vulnerable place.” – New York Times Book Review
 
Raffi works in an observational cosmology lab, searching for dark matter and trying to hide how little they understand their own research. Every chance they get, they escape to see Britt, a queer sculptor who fascinates them for reasons they also can’t—or won’t—understand. As Raffi’s carefully constructed life begins to collapse, they become increasingly fixated on the multiverse and the idea that somewhere, there may be a universe where they mean as much to Britt as Britt does to them . . . and just like that, Raffi and Britt are thirteen years old, best friends and maybe something more.
 
In Universes is a mind-bending tour across parallel worlds, each an answer to the question of what Raffi’s life would be like if things had happened just a little differently. The universes grow increasingly strange: women fracture into hordes of animals; alien-possessed bears prowl apocalyptic landscapes. But across worlds, Raffi—with their sometimes-friends, sometimes-lovers Britt, Kay, and Graham—reaches for a life that feels authentically their own.
 
Blending realism with science fiction, In Universes explores the thirst for genius, the fluidity of gender and identity, and the pull of the past against the desire to lead a meaningful life, and insists on the transgressive power of hope even in the darkest of times.