Q: A Love Story

Q: A Love Story
Evan Mandery

In a gripping tale of time travel and true love, a successful writer meets his future self, who advises him not to marry Q, the love of his life.Would you give up the love of your life on the advice of a stranger?A picturesque love story begins at the cinema when our hero – an unacclaimed writer, unorthodox professor and unmistakeable New Yorker – first meets Q, his one everlasting love. Over the following weeks, in the rowboats of Central Park, on the miniature golf courses of Lower Manhattan, under a pear tree in Q’s own inner-city Eden, their miraculous romance accelerates and blossoms.Nothing, it seems – not even the hostilities of Q’s father or the impending destruction of Q’s garden – can disturb the lovers, or obstruct their advancing wedding. They are destined to be together.Until one day a man claiming to be our hero’s future self tells him he must leave Q.In Q, Evan Mandery has fashioned an epic love story on quantum foundations. The novel wears its philosophical and narrative sophistication lightly: with exuberant, direct and witty prose, Mandery brings an essayist’s poise to this fabulous romance. And, finally, Q has an ending that will melt even the darkest heart.

Q

A Novel

Evan Mandery

Dedication

For V, my Q

Epigraph

What is the point of this story?

What information pertains?

The thought that life could be better

Is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains.

PAUL SIMON, “TRAIN IN THE DISTANCE”

Contents

Cover (#ulink_d77a121f-ac99-510a-b01e-3d02159bc55f)

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Fair

Book One

Good

Chapter One

In the aftermath of the publication of my novel, Time’s…

Chapter Two

It is no easy matter to arrange a table at…

Chapter Three

I order a porcini mushroom tart as a starter and…

Chapter Four

By this time, Q and I are far along in…

Chapter Five

After the ominous admonition that I must not wed Q,…

Chapter Six

I harbor suspicions, intensified by this conversation at the end…

Chapter Seven

You have been following me.” I-60 says this directly, matter-of-factly,…

Chapter Eight

To me this is all a dream, the worst of…

Chapter Nine

During the weeks following our dinner at La Grenouille and…

Chapter Ten

On the last Wednesday of November, Q drags herself out…

Chapter Eleven

Even by her lofty standards, Joan Deveril has outdone herself…

Chapter Twelve

Tristan Handy seems out of time. He rises as he…

Book Two

Better

Chapter Thirteen

The Monday following the fateful Thanksgiving dinner, I move out…