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    Q: A Love Story
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    Q: A Love Story
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    Q: A Love Story
    Ebook356 pages6 hours

    Q: A Love Story

    By Evan Mandery

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateSep 1, 2011
    ISBN9780007454280
    Unavailable
    Q: A Love Story
    Author

    Evan Mandery

    Evan Mandery is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the author of two works of non-fiction and two previous novels, ‘Dreaming of Gwen Stefani’ and ‘First Contact’.

    Read more from Evan Mandery

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    Reviews for Q

    3/5

    51 ratings18 reviews

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    • 2/5
      An unnamed narrator tells the story of Q, Quentina Elizabeth Deveril, the love of his life. After meeting, dating, and planning to marry, an older version of the narrator arrives via time travel to tell him that he can't marry Q. He takes his elder self's advice and tries to move on with his life. But then more and more time traveling future selves arrive, constantly interfering with his life. This may be the most twee novel I've ever read. It pushed the limits of Poe's Law, making me wonder if this is the ultimate New York hipster with affectations novel, or just a parody of New York hipster with affectations. I eventually decided that it's later, and to it's credit parts of this novel are laugh out loud funny. The conclusion is also very satisfying. But to get to that point - whoa boy - it was tough to not just give up reading.
    • 1/5
      Too twee by a wide margin. The dialogue was particularly bad: stilted and robotic.
    • 3/5
      Summary: The unnamed narrator of this book is very much in love with his intelligent, vivacious, passionate fiancé, Q (short for Quentina). Which is why he's very much surprised when he receives a note - in his own handwriting - telling him to meet for dinner, and when he arrives at dinner, his future self informs him that he's traveled through time in order to give him one very critical piece of advice: "You must not marry Q." Our narrator is reluctant to heed this advice, of course, but he does... and no sooner has the dust settled when he runs into another future self, with a new piece of advice. This pattern continues, with the pieces of advice becoming more and more trivial, until our narrator ultimately reaches the age at which time travel becomes possible.Review: I read this book for book club, and I have to say, I'm glad someone picked it. Not because I particularly enjoyed it, because I didn't really, but because it made for a very, very interesting discussion about the nature of time, and of the choices we make, and whether we would change things in our own past if we could, and what the repercussions would be if we did. So this book had a lot of fodder for discussion, and a lot of food for thought, and as I said at the discussion, "I wouldn't go back in time and tell myself not to read it." But as much as I enjoyed talking about it, I didn't particularly care for the book itself. It did have some good parts apart from the concept; Mandery can turn a phrase, and there are lines and passages that are very insightful, and some that are very funny, including a particularly nice Douglas Adams reference. But these things in and of themselves were not enough to save the rest of the book for me.Let me explain why not. I thought the idea for the story was interesting, and certainly had a lot of potential, and gods know I love me a good time travel story. But to qualify as a "good" time travel story, the quantum mechanics of time travel need to be well-worked-out, or at least internally consistent with their approach to the "if you change the past, you obviate the need for future you to go back and change the past in the first place" paradox. And in that respect, although this book is teccccchnically sci-fi (it does involve time-travel, after all), it is very clearly written for a contemporary, "literary" audience, and although it makes a half-hearted attempt to talk about the ways that changing the past affect the future, it's not internally consistent with its underpinning mechanics at all. And while I get that the time travel was a literary device rather than a true sci-fi element, I still found the vagueness as to how it actually worked to be really unsatisfying.However, my main problem with the story was that I just did not like any of the characters. I found Q to be annoying (and much less charming and wonderful than the narrator claims), and I found the future versions of the narrator to be just as obnoxious as the narrator himself, and therefore never really understood what he and Q saw in each other, or bought into the love story. This is also one of those cases where, since it is written in the first person, and since the narrator bears a number of biographical similarities to the author, I had a hard time distinguishing whether the things that bothered me about the writing were part of the narrator's voice, or the author's, or both. In either case, I found the narrator and the book to be overly self-satisfied with their own cleverness. There's name-dropping and cultural references galore, and a layer of meta-ness that just rubbed me the wrong way. (Very similar to How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, actually; another book that used time travel as a literary device.) For example, the narrator is a history professor who writes unsuccessful alternate-history novels about the changing of one trivial detail from history, while having his own history changed by himself from the future. So that's one level of meta-ness, right there. And there are excerpts of some of his novels included within the text... followed by a rant (from one of the future versions of the narrator) about novelists that include a story within a story. DO YOU GET IT, THE META-NESS? And the book is full of things like that. I'm not opposed to metafiction as a whole, but there are ways of utilizing it that work for me, and this was not one of them. 3 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: Overall, this book was a quick read with some nice writing, and it fueled a very interesting discussion, but on its own merits, I mostly found it kind of annoying, and was left somewhat unclear on what the author was actually trying to say. Might be worth considering if you've got someone to talk about it with, or if you liked How to Live Safely..., but otherwise, I'd say you can probably pass.
    • 3/5
      Q by Evan ManderyPremise: Time Travel - Is it possible to make our current/future lives better by changing our past?MC's older self(ves) go back in time, returning to his present time, in order to give him advice on how to make his life better. The first self who visits him tells him he should not marry the woman he is deeply in love with. He is given a good reason; however, the reader can see right away that it would be really unnecessary to follow that advice. He follows it because for one thing, ignoring the advice wouldn't make a good story, and secondly, the protagonist is a dope. Likable, but a dope nonetheless. He needs a keeper. I love the premise of this book as well as the lesson I took away from it when I finally reached the end; however, the plot itself was nearly nonexistent. At least, the story surrounding the characters was shrouded by all the extraneous twaddle that encompassed a good 3/4 of the book itself. A major--MAJOR--portion of the book is spent within the protagonist's current magnum opus or whatever he professes it to be. We are, oh, good Lord, forced to read the main character's novels as he is writing them. He describes his genre of writing as the "counterhistorical exploration of the unexplored potentialities of...(fill in the blank)". Basically, what would happen if a famous person from history did something else with his/her life? Became famous, or not, for something else? Sounds reasonable, right? Especially when it doesn't involve vampires or zombies. Ahem. Unfortunately, the ridiculous material wanders all over the place like a 5 year old picking flowers in the outfield at a T-ball game. The subjects of the MC's novels range from the "full potentialities of a full William Henry Harrison presidency" in full detail...to Sigmund Freud's obsession with the male genitalia of eels, not to mention his own mother. Chapters and chapters and chapters and chapters focus on Freud's imaginary parallel life, his loves, and how it all takes him on a different path than what he is known for. (I'm pretty sure I'm making it sound much more interesting than it actually was when reading about it.)I'm not sure if I am more annoyed by how cerebral it is written or if I enjoy it for that same reason. I think I actually felt neurons firing, stretching out and attaching themselves to other parts of my brain. Thank goodness the author knows how to incorporate "verisimilitude" into his novel because I almost believed half the baloney he referenced. Shoot, I don't know anything about quantum physics. I know very little about the migration route of whales. Who knows? Maybe Freud was a devotee of Charles Darwin's theories regarding evolution? Perhaps he was obsessed with humpback whales and the testes of eels. The author's skill made it so *yawn* *sigh* convincing that I failed to fact check and see if there was any grain of truth to it. Needless to say, I'm thankful I read this using a kindle app, because I needed my dictionary throughout. Unless you are a graduate of Hah-vahd or your name is John Green, you will too. Indubitably, that is an obvious axiomatic conclusion based on the evidence provided by the subject material. Was Q's author getting paid by the word? I was actually starting to wonder if I was being Punk'd! à la Ashton Kutcher. Right when I was getting ready to write a letter to Mr. Mandery in protest and to demand a refund of my inevitable late-return library fee, the character's older self finally comes back and tells him, "Your novels are crap. No one is interested in them. No one will ever be interested in them." Huh. The author is so brilliantly talented, I guess, that he even feigned to bore himself. Masterful touch. Touché, Mr. Mandery. Your point.All my snide comments aside, I did enjoy this book (minus the twaddle mentioned above). There were a few gems in there, such as the detailed and humorous description of a communist-themed putt-putt course funded by the Neo-Marxist Society of Lower Manhattan. There were also some ideas thrown out there that struck me with their insightfulness:Everyone believes he will act bravely when life presents him with his greatest test, but in the end there are few heroes.This is how it is with bullies. They force themselves upon the world and shape it to suit their needs.Sometimes circumstances will require sophistication. At other times simplicity may be needed. Creatures will adapt to whatever situation confronts them. This is Darwin's true meaning."Ultimately, meaning is up to the reader."Touring a matzo factory: There are no chocolate rivers or Oompa Loompas, just Jews. "I know this all seems foreign to you," he says. "You're thirty-one. You're young. You can't even imagine what it's like to be old. But time passes in an instant." He snaps his fingers. "In the blink of an eye you will be me. And then you will look back upon your life with the full measure of regret it deserves."In summary, class, I think Evan Mandery is pretty darn brilliant. I would have rated this higher if it would have been edited down. I think the excessive "crap" part of the novel was written on purpose and left in there on purpose. Unfortunately, I was so distracted and annoyed by it, I couldn't wait to reach the end of the book. The dry humor of it, or its subtlety or whatever, was mostly lost on me because the "joke" went on far too long (kind of like my review). I will look for more of his books, though, because as a writer, there's obviously something really interesting going on in his noggin.
    • 4/5
      I must first admit that I was pressured to read this novel because I work as an intern for Evan Mandery's agent, and for this, I am very grateful.

      Mandery is a rare writer who can write about the heaviest things in life, mortality and love and heartbreak and bone-crushing misery, without weighing the reader down. His sense of humor and inexplicable ability to pick the right words for every nuance allow the reader to feel everything the character is feeling, experience everything the character is feeling without the melodrama that often accompanies novels that explore these themes.

      His attention to detail and use of specifics give the novel such a lifelike quality, and really, if you think about it, the experience of reading this novel is a lot like life itself: it's painful as hell, but sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
    • 3/5
      Mandery has written a very interesting but uneven novel. Part I does pull the reader in, but most of Part II is very slow (although towards the end of Part II is my favorite chapter where the I-xx's just keep coming). Part III, though, is exactly as it should be, showing where the title comes from.
    • 2/5
      Evan Mandery has rather missed the mark in this novel which cobbles together literary fiction and science fiction in a Frankenstein’s monster that pleases no-one. The unnamed narrator is an idiot who blindly follows the advice of various future versions of himself with increasingly unhappy consequences. A barely talented writer on meeting and engaging the girl of his dreams – the titular Q [for Quentina] is quick to dump her on the advice of his somewhat seedy future self who has traveled back through time. Exit Q and cue in a long series of visitations and absurd changes in direction. The story sucks and the narrator is an unlikeable idiot but the writing is elegant and witty – laugh out loud funny in places – which is not enough to elevate the book but will probably keep you reading.
    • 3/5
      I feel very mixed about this book. The first 150 pages were wonderful- funny, clever and engaging. After another hundred pages I was really annoyed with the multiple future versions of the narrator coming back in time to upend his life yet again. Mandery's style is smooth and literate, but it was hard to have no Q for the majority of the book!
    • 3/5
      I received this book as an Early Reviewer. It was such a clever premise that falls flat by the end. Here was my essential problem with the novel: If someone continually gives you advice that proves to be terrible, wouldn't you at some point stop taking advice from that person? Our narrator doesn't. He bounces from one ridiculous course of life to another on advice that proves to be terrible time and time again. I kept waiting for him finally to make his own decision. I was disappointed. The author had a great idea, but the execution didn't live up to the promise. And the quips and references got a little too cute for my taste. I'll probably try another of his books again, but I can't really recommend this one.
    • 4/5
      Shortly before his wedding, the unnamed protagonist is visited by his future self and is told, in no uncertain terms, that he must not marry the love of his life: Q. At first doubtful, but finally convinced, the narrator breaks off his engagement and tries to find a new path. He's helped along the way by other future versions of himself, versions that have lived the life he has now chosen and who try to help him pick a better life. After living out their (or really, his) suggestions, the protagonist reflects on the life he's led. Was it really better this way? Does knowing your future mean it should be altered, and if you change it, will that really make it better?Q is an interesting (and from what I can tell, original) take on time travel literature. At once philosophical, it is also a heartbreaking love story that transcends time. It deals with the age-old question, "If I could go back and do it all over again, would I?"I loved the storyline and plot. I thought it was well-written and an exceedingly great idea for a story. But it wasn't perfect. Mandery seems to have a general dislike of contractions and uses them sparingly. This can make the dialogue seem a bit forced and unnatural. Also, the protagonist appeared to be very unperturbed by the fact that he was face to face with his future self. Time travel is still a very sci-fi concept, but he seemed to accept the inevitability of it not only being discovered, but that he would use it as a means to re-structure his life. Personally, I would have freaked out a little bit more.Finally, the narrator is himself a writer, and we are given snippets of his works. Sometimes an entire chapter of the book would be a chapter from one of his novels. I couldn't see much point in this other than Mandery trying to show how the protagonist's writing was directly influenced by his personal life. If there's a deeper meaning to this, I didn't get it and I felt it could have been omitted. There were, however, some very funny parts to the novel which counteracted the seemingly unnecessary ones.Overall, an original and well-written novel that will leave you with a smile on your face. 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 3/5
      Q: A Novel is exactly what I think of when I think of a book that is just trying a little too hard to be witty, sarcastic and a bit satirical. As a result, I’m really torn on if I enjoyed it or if it just was okay for me.I will say I was enchanted by the beginning – the love story between Q and the narrator of this story was charming and enjoyable and I really loved it – but then the narrators future self steps in and things start to get a little too strange.It wasn’t the science fiction aspect of the book that bugged me – I’ve read other books dealing with time travel and thoroughly enjoyed them, so I think it was maybe the sheer hopelessness of it all. The narrators life keeps being changed and keeps getting significantly different from where he initially started out at and it made me really begin to think about just how dangerous knowledge of the future could be.One other thing about the book that bugged me was the similarity between the author and the main character – both had knowledge in certain fields and the narrator even writes books in miniature within the pages of the story. It was a little too much for me to be able to handle seriously.Books like Q make me feel as if I’m either way too critical or just not smart enough to enjoy what should have been a thought-provoking story. Instead I felt let down when I closed the book, and a bit relieved as well.
    • 2/5
      Thank goodness there are different styles for different readers. While I did appreciate the skill with which this was written I did not enjoy the style of writing. This would not discourage me from trying other books by this author.
    • 3/5
      This was an interesting book . I really enjoyed most of it , but the " reason for leaving Q" was a shortsighted one . The advice the main character gets from his time traveling future selves was sometimes pointless and unnecessary to the plot . I think the story would've been stronger/fuller if Q's life was shown throughout the narrator's constant life changes based on the future selves advice .
    • 4/5
      This is a funny, poignant, timetraveling, somewhat cautionary love story told over one very chameleon like lifetime. "Q' stands for Quentina Elizabeth Deveril, the passion of the protagonist's life (we never learn his name), his intended wife until he gets a visit from "a friend" who convinces him to leave her. This is only the first of several visits that cause him to dramatically change his life over and over again. I would argue that "Q" could possibly stand for "quantum physics" given that time travel plays a very big role in this story. But no matter the names or the nameless, this is a fascinating tale with numerous twists and turns that will keep you captivated from the first paragraph until the very last, and very gratifying, line.
    • 4/5
      This is a time-traveling story which takes place simultaneously in the past, present, and future, though maintaining one continuous timeline. The protagonist falls in love with Q, but his future self comes back to tell him not to marry her. He doesn't... and consequently is never truly happy with anything else he does. Just as you are about to suffocate under the immense weight of a thousand and one flashbacks, Mandery pulls you back to the future and resuscitates you with his wit and clever observations. While at times confusing, and while several of the actual dialogues in the story were lengthy and unnecessary at best, the bare bones of the story were indeed a "timeless" love story.
    • 4/5
      What became so surprising after awhile, is how malleable the protagonist is. His future self shows up and he immediately changes the course of his life - and the instructions get ever more frivolous. The story did make me think - if I knew that some horrible experience waited for me in the future, would I try to avoid it if I could? And what kind of life would await me instead? The conclusion made the story successful for me, because up to the end I felt like the story just meandered without purpose. Though, maybe that was the point.
    • 1/5
      I tried really hard to like this book, and many parts of it were interesting, especially those relating to time travel theories. However, the main character was highly unlikeable, and the fact that Evan Mandery told us countless times that his characters books were mundane and badly written, he still made the readers read around 40 pages of excerpts. For further reference Evan Mandery, if you say that a writers work is boring, we will believe you, you don't have to make us read the horribly boring work ourselves. I read the first two excerpts and skipped the rest. Another instance I had a problem with, was the paragraph about the honeymoon with Q and talking tortoises. This would have been fine if the entire book would have had this same overtone of humor or mysticism or whatever the author intended for that little story, but since it's the only case in the entire book, I can only assume it's a bad joke that I missed. All in all, I appreciated the point the author was trying to make. The overall theme and message was an interesting and valuable one, but he spent far too much of his effort on creating a character that was "eclectic" and "witty" and instead created an unlikable, arrogant, unbelievable man that was hard to sympathize or even care about. SLIGHT SPOILER:For those that have read it, I also had a problem with the reason why he couldn't marry Q. If the only problem with the entire marriage was the child dying, why could he not just sit down and tell Q the story (however unbelievable it was, even though the main character took it with a grain of salt) and then decide not to have children. Use birth control, have a vasectomy, adopt. It seemed like an incredibly easy solution that would have made marriage possible, and yet no one even questions any other alternatives besides leaving Q. The basis of building an entire book on a lack of common sense and communication is horrible, because it leaves the reader with the idea that you either didn't have the foresight to see these solutions, and at least address them, or you thought your readers would be too stupid to see this alternative.
    • 3/5
      At one point in this book, Q says 'too science fictiony', and I agree with her. I do not enjoy science fiction. However, I'm not sure if this story is more about science fiction or simply the inner musings of a man who is too paralyzed by fear of failure to make authentic choices and follow through with them. This story confused me as I could never tell while reading what was supposed to be percieved as action opposed to imagination. I found the entire experience disconcerting.The quality of writing is excellent however and I imagine there is an audience of readers who will enjoy this book. Unfortunantly, the description 'timeless romance' is not likely to catch the attention of those sort of readers. In my opinion, the book was marketed poorly. Lastly, I am glad to have won this book as I appreciate the time I spent outside the limits of what I would typically choose for fiction. Enjoyment and enrichment do not always coincide and sometimes that is acceptable.