Introduction

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In this "dazzling debut" (Publishers Weekly), the moving story of one man's quest for happiness is interwoven with speculative tales of the Before and After, resulting in a profound yet playful literary journey into the ache and wonder of being human.

In the Before, humankind is created with a hole in its heart, the designers not realizing their mistake--if it was a mistake--until too late.

Elliot Chance is just a boy, and knows nothing of this. All he knows is that he doesn't feel at home in this world, and his desire for escape becomes more urgent as he grows into adulthood, where the turbulence of life seems to offer no cure for the emptiness. Desperate and lost, he stumbles upon a support group on the edge of Manhattan. There he meets two other drifting souls--Sasha, a young woman who leaves coded messages in the copy she writes for advertising campaigns, and Bannor, whose detailed depictions of the future make Elliot think he may have actually been there. With these two unlikely allies, Elliot launches into the business of life, determined to be happy in spite of himself.

Yet the hole in the heart is not so easily filled.

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Excerpt

Before

In a room that is not a room, with walls that are not walls and a window that is not a window, Merriam considers her handiwork. The finished form lies on a table (that is not a table), illuminated by a divine light that Merriam dialed to peak radiance so that she could tend to the last, delicate touches. The brass call it the “vessel,” because it is both the container into which the travelers will pour themselves and the ship that will bear them on their journey. Merriam prefers a different name, one she believes the travelers themselves will use. Humana corpus. The human body.

It’s good, she thinks. Right? Anyone can see that it’s good. Everything the brass asked for and more. The blueprints were detailed, and Merriam followed them precisely, adding her own flourishes where the brass had allowed her some creative leeway. She is particularly fond of the splash of color in the irises, and—for some unknown reason—the spleen. Yes, she decides, it is good.

“Very good,” she says aloud, though her voice is no more than a whisper. The words seem hesitant to emerge, as if the lingering doubt within her were a pair of human hands tugging them back, imploring them to wait until they are sure.

Her internal dialogue is interrupted by Jollis, who appears in the doorway with a hopeful, eager air. He looks around the room, noting the stray bits of cloud in the corners, the row of brightly colored bottles on the shelf. When he sees the body, his typically discriminating aspect slips into one of guileless wonder. “Merriam, wow.” A laugh escapes him. “It’s magnificent.”

“Do you think so?”

“Absolutely.” He moves in for a closer look. “Have the brass seen it?”

“Not the final,” says Merriam. “But naturally they had a hand in it, so to speak. Everyone contributed—the brass most of all.”

Jollis circles the table, continuing his appraisal. “Good bones,” he says. “And I love what you did with the spleen.” Slowly, reverently, he leans in toward the face and gently pushes back the eyelids. He gasps. The eyes glisten, collecting the room’s divine light and amplifying it, before sending it back in a chromatic gleam. “Exquisite,” says Jollis. “They’re going to love it, Merry.”

“Really?”

“Oh, definitely. We’re talking major promotion.”

Merriam tries to hide her excitement. “This is just the prototype, of course.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, it’s finished, and fundamentally they’ll all be the same, but there will be all kinds of variations—different shapes, colors, idiosyncrasies—because obviously the travelers will want that. It’s not like they’d ever declare just one type to be beautiful and then desperately try to imitate it.”

“No, of course not,” agrees Jollis. “That would be ridiculous.” He moves toward the window. “Do you want to see where they’re going?”

Merriam freezes, her insides suddenly aflutter. She does want to see, doesn’t she? The others have been working so hard, and with such secrecy. Finally she nods, and Jollis pulls back the curtain. “Merriam,” he says, “allow me to present . . . Earth.”

There in the window is a shining, distant orb so lovely it is almost painful to behold. Crimson fires warm it from within, while a yellow sun bathes it in light. Argent clouds swirl over an intricate mosaic of tawny sands and emerald wilds. And everywhere the sparkling blue of water—gathered in vast oceans, rushing madly in rivers, falling from an ethereal sky.

Though she should be elated, Merriam feels oddly cold, almost numb. She can’t seem to find her voice, but Jollis’s expectant gaze is on her. “It’s magical,” she says.

“Pretty sweet, right? They say it can accommodate up to two billion people. Any more than that would be a disaster.”

“So, it’s ready to go?”

Jollis nods happily. “Just waiting on the vessel.”

The vessel. Merriam turns back to look at the body on the table. The lingering doubt within her finally crystallizes into a clear danger, a peril against which she might still be able to offer some defense. She begins to shoo Jollis out of the room. “Right,” she says. “The vessel. Almost there! Just one last thing.”

“But you said it was done.”

“Just about,” she says. “You can’t rush these things, after all.” Once Jollis has been successfully ushered out, Merriam returns to the body. She takes one last look at the wondrous new world shining in the window. Then she gets to work.

By the time Jollis returns, Merriam is slumped beside the table, exhausted. She rises to greet him. He gives her a nervous nod and turns his attention to the body, immediately discerning her latest and final edit—a small cavity inside the chest, shaped vaguely like a crescent, nestled beside the heart.

Jollis pales. When he finally speaks, his voice is brittle. “There’s a hole in it.”

“No,” says Merriam. “It’s—”

“What did you take out?”

“Nothing.”

“But what’s supposed to go there?” Jollis gestures urgently. “What’s missing?”

“Nothing’s missing,” says Merriam. “It’s complete.”

Jollis gapes at her as if she had just proclaimed she was a jelly bean. “But there’s a hole in it!”

“It’s not a hole,” she insists. Jollis’s distress jangles her nerves, threatening her newfound certainty. “It’s . . . an empty space.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her. “You need to fix it,” he says. “Change it back.”

“It’s too late,” says Merriam. “Look.” She points to the eyes of the body. Though they remain closed, the skin of the eyelids undulates as the eyes dart and roll beneath the surface.

“What’s it doing?” asks Jollis.

“Dreaming,” she says. “First comes the dreaming, then everything else.”

Jollis begins to shake until Merriam fears he will shatter. Instead he begins to move around the room, searching. “Okay, don’t panic,” he says. “We’ll just fill the hole before it wakes up.” He gathers up fragments of cloud from the corners of the room and packs them together, then stuffs them into the crescent-shaped cavity, careful not to disturb the adjacent heart. He draws back and watches as the white mist expands to fill the space. But clouds are restless things, and this one dissipates, dissolving like fog in the morning sun, leaving the emptiness behind.

Jollis grimaces. He begins to gather the divine light of the room itself, sweeping it up in great heaps until his visage is ablaze and the corners of the room retract into shadow. He squeezes the light down, pressing it into the cavity. Illuminated now from both within and without, the crescent space is striking in its beauty. Yet, light being what it is, it cannot fill the void.

“No,” moans Jollis. He turns to the shelf full of colored bottles. “What are these?”

“Emotions,” says Merriam. “The full spectrum, but I’ve already included the prescribed amounts.”

Jollis grabs a bright red bottle and tilts it over the body’s chest. A shimmering substance pours forth, filling the cavity. Jollis sighs with relief and puts the empty bottle back on the shelf. “There,” he says. “That’ll do it. Which emotion is that?”

“Love.”

“Perfect,” says Jollis. “That should work out just—” As he speaks, the shimmering substance drains from the cavity, leaving it empty again. “What happened?”

“It got absorbed,” says Merriam. “By the heart.”

“Dammit!” Jollis grabs more bottles from the shelf. He pours them in one after another. Each time, the emotion is absorbed by the heart. As Jollis gets to the darker ones, Merriam tries to stop him, but he surges on, frantically emptying bottles until only one is left—a small, twisted vial the color of ash and flame. He begins to pour it, too, into the cavity, but Merriam pushes him away before he can finish.

“Jollis, that’s enough. It won’t work.”

Jollis drops the vial. He slumps, his countenance dimming. “We’re doomed.”

“But why?” asks Merriam. She is scared now. She has never seen him so distraught.

“Because it’s got a hole in it!” he cries. “And they’ll know it, Merry. They’ll feel it, and they’re going to constantly be looking for things to fill it with. They’ll eat too much. They’ll fall in love with the wrong people. They’ll hoard money, and watch too much television, and buy useless crap from holiday catalogs, like potato scrubbing gloves or a spoonula.”

“What’s a spoonula?”

“Never mind.” Jollis softens. He is more despondent than angry. “Don’t you see? Nothing will work. There will always be this void. No matter how they try to fill it, they will always want the one thing we can never give them enough of.”

“What’s that?” asks Merriam

“More.”

Merriam feels hot tears gathering inside her, wanting out. She realizes she hadn’t thought it through. Not completely. “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she says quietly.

Jollis sighs. “But why did you do it?”

Merriam glances out the window. “Because of that world,” she says. “I saw that beautiful world we made for them, and I was afraid they’d love it so much they’d never want to leave. So I gave them a little empty space, to make sure they’d come home.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. What is Elliot searching for? Where does he look? Does he find it? Do you think he could have found it somewhere else?

2. One of Jollis’s tasks it to catalog all of the scars inflicted on the human vessel during its journey, giving a check mark for each pain, mishap, hurt, failure, etc. He says the most rewarding journeys are often evidenced by the most check marks. Do you agree?

3. Is Dean a bad person? Do you think he loves Elliot? In either case, based on what evidence?

4. “If you’re lucky,” says Esther, “people will love you in the way they know how. And if you’re really lucky, the love they can give will be the love you need.” Have there been people in your life that have loved you, though not in the way you feel you needed?

5. Elliot and Sasha visit a priest, a neurologist, and a monk so that Sasha can ask about what happens after we die. Each of these three people has a unique answer to Sasha’s question. How are the answers different? How might they be seen as the same? How does the final chapter of the novel incorporate all three of these answers?

6. Bannor says that in the future there’s a pill for everything, even ones that can prevent unwanted emotions. If you lived then, which pills would you take? Which ones would you not want to take?

7. What does Jollis think of human desire? What do the brass say about it? What do you think? Do you have any desires you’d rather not have? Do you have any desires that you’re glad you have and wouldn’t want to lose?

8. Do you think Elliot’s experience of life is a happy one? A tragic one? A special one? How else might you describe it? What do you want your experience of life to be?

9. What do you think Elliot does after the book ends? Why do you think so? Are there reasons to think otherwise?

10. Sasha believes we place too much importance on endings. Do you agree? Why do you think we might tend to do that?

11. For the Easter egg hunters: There are bits of the novel (whether a line, a concept, a name, etc.) that are inspired by, or indirectly evoke or allude to, the following works. Can you find them? “After Apple-Picking” and “The Trial By Existence,” by Robert Frost. Rain Man (the film). If on a winter’s night a traveler, by Italo Calvino. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. Diamond Sutra, by The Buddha. “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath.

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