TheMystery.doc : A Novel

"A vast, beguiling...postmodern novel of ideas, misread intentions, and robots, told in words, pictures, symbols, and even blank pages" by the author of Well ( Kirkus ). Rooted in the western United States in the decade after 9/11, Matthew McIntosh's epic and elliptical novel follows a young writer and his wife as he attempts to write the follow-up to his first novel. He desperately searches for a form that will express the world as it has become, even as it continually shifts all around him. Pop-up ads, search results, web chats, snippets of conversation, lines of code, and film and television stills mix with alchemical manuscripts, classical works of literature—and the story of a man who wakes up one morning having lost his memory. His only clue to his own identity is a single blank document on his computer called theMystery.doc. From text messages to The Divine Comedy , first love to artificial intelligence, the book explores what makes us human—the stories we tell, the memories we hold on to, the memories we lose—and the relationships that give our lives meaning. Part love story, part memoir, part documentary, part existential whodunit, theMystery.doc is a modern epic about the quest to find something lasting in a world where everything—and everyone—is in danger of slipping away. "McIntosh is a slacker Proust, writing about the underclass of Spokane rather than the upper classes of Paris as he attempts to convert memories and experience into art...a remarkable achievement."—Steven Moore, Washington Post Funny, highly inventive, and deeply moving, theMystery.doc is a vast, shapeshifting literary novel that reads like a page-turner. It's a comedy, a tragedy, a big book about America. It's unlike anything you've read before. Rooted in the western United States in the decade post-9/11, the book follows a young writer and his wife as he attempts to write the follow-up to his first novel, searching for a form that will express the world as it has become, even as it continually shifts all around him. Pop-up ads, search results, web chats, snippets of conversation, lines of code, and film and television stills mix with alchemical manuscripts, classical works of literature--and the story of a man who wakes up one morning without any memory of who he is, his only clue a single blank document on his computer called themystery.doc. From text messages to The Divine Comedy, first love to artificial intelligence, the book explores what makes us human--the stories we tell, the memories we hold on to, the memories we lose--and the relationships that give our lives meaning. Part love story, part memoir, part documentary, part existential whodunit, theMystery.doc is a modern epic about the quest to find something lasting in a world where everything--and everyone--is in danger of slipping away Rooted in the western United States in the decade post-9/11, theMystery.doc follows a young writer and his wife as he attempts to write his second book, a national epic he hopes will last forever, and as he searches for a form that will express the world as it has become, revealing the interconnectedness of all our lives. Pop-up ads, internet search results, spam, lines of code, frames of film and television mix with canonical works of literature, alchemical manuscripts, transcripts of personal conversations, and the story of a man who wakes up one morning not knowing who he is, a blank document called themystery.doc newly appeared on his computer. Part love story, part prose poem, part documentary, part existential whodunit, part future-fiction, part Bildungsroman, part memoir, theMystery.doc is about the quest to find something lasting in a world where everything is in danger of slipping away. Love, loss, birth, death, technology, terrorism and the American Dream come together to form a great symphonic work that dazzles in both its structure and in its deep emotional resonance. Thirteen years in the making, theMystery.doc is a 1700-page shapeshifting novel that is unlike any book that has ever been published before.