Good on Paper
Authors: Rachel Cantor
Tags: #Fiction, #Family Life, #Contemporary Women, #Literary
Praise for Rachel Cantor and
A Highly Unlikely Scenario
“It’s as if Kurt Vonnegut and Italo Calvino collaborated to write a comic book sci-fi adventure and persuaded Chagall to do the drawings. One of the freshest and mostly lively novels I have encountered for quite a while.”
—Jim Crace, author of
Harvest
and
The Pesthouse
“
A Highly Unlikely Scenario
is a joyful book, full of the energy of undiluted invention and the thoughtful imagination of a writer to watch. It’s a wild ride and much more—funny, intelligent and entirely pleasing.”
—A. L. Kennedy, author of
Day
“Part Italo Calvino, part Ray Bradbury, in this extraordinary novel, Rachel Cantor explores questions of self-knowledge, true love and family, all while saving the world—and winning readers—in the past, present, and future.”
—Hannah Tinti, author of
The Good Thief
“I didn’t know I needed a mystical Jewish Douglas Adams in my life, but Rachel Cantor is it, and her Guide makes me
shep naches
every time I turn a page. Buy this book,
bubeleh
! It will surprise you in ways large and small, and it will fill you with delight.”
—Emily Barton, author of
Brookland
“Cosmic and comic, full of philosophy, mysticism and celestial whimsy. A story of listening, of souls and bodies, that is at once both profoundly wild and wildly profound.”
—Charles Yu, author of
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
“A sharp, witty, and immensely entertaining debut … Cantor’s skill in rendering complex and highly believable characters makes for an unexpectedly moving tale.”
—Emily St. John Mandel, author of
Station Eleven
“A dystopian satire, a story about storytelling, believing and listening—
A Highly Unlikely Scenario
is ultimately a history of our own strange world.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“[A] dizzying fabulist debut.”
—
The Washington Post
“Ultimately, more than incantations and codes, it’s family Cantor cares about.
A Highly Unlikely Scenario
is about just that: Familial wisdom and love lost and found and shared anew, finally, conquering all.”
—
The Daily Beast
“[Cantor’s] imagination is exhilarating—
A Highly Unlikely Scenario
will appeal to fans of sci-fi and people who just like to laugh.”
—
Cosmopolitan
’s 10 Books by Women You Have to Read This Spring
“A treat for those who like zippy sci-fi paced like the stories of Kurt Vonnegut.”
—
Time Out New York
“Rachel Cantor joins the ranks of authors who are able to turn philosophical concepts into whiz-bang plots, and make them funny as well. Throw in some family dysfunction, time travel, a librarian ingénue, and the possible destruction of the world, and you’ve got an adventure story replete with nerdy delights.”
—
Tor
“The book’s plot, which concerns a future where fast food corporations run the world, is deliciously weird enough to work in its own warped way, walking the line between straight fantasy and fiction.”
—
Flavorwire
“A heroic tale unlike any other: a novel that is not about a quest but about learning that the world—our world—is full of extraordinary, mysterious wonders.”
—
The Kenyon Review
“This debut novel is a present to both sci-fi and humor fans alike.”
—Barnes & Noble Book Blog, January indie books roundup
“In this roller-coaster debut, fast-food corporations rule the world and a peon customer-service worker has to save it … Cantor is in control of her material, and successful dystopian satire makes more sense while you’re lost in it.”
—
Heeb
, Best Books of the Year
“Brooklyn-based writer Rachel Cantor has created a whole new world in her debut novel—a humorous and playful science fiction story.”
—Brooklyn Eagle
“Delightful … The sense of excitement in Cantor’s prose, which propels this familiar story of a few silly, frightened people braving their way through a maddening, baffling world, is what compels us to keep reading.”
—
The Rumpus
“An intrepid debut.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Cantor suspends disbelief and creates a loony world entirely of her own, which is terrifically funny and effortlessly enjoyable … Highly entertaining and adventurous.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“[A] rambunctiously smart, pun-spiked, and sweet dystopian romantic comedy … Cantor’s funny and charming metaphysical adventure and love story is a wily inquiry into questions of perception, knowledge, mystery, legacy, and love.”
—
Booklist
“Cantor’s novel will be a great hit for fans of Douglas Adams’s
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe
. There’s a lot going on here, and all of it is amusing.”
—
Library Journal
“The great pleasure of such novels is the world-building, in which the author invents a new universe while playfully commenting on our own. And what Cantor does of this is great, her impish prose and dry wit perfectly suited to the task.”
—
The Telegraph
(UK)
ALSO BY RACHEL CANTOR
A Highly Unlikely Scenario
GOOD ON PAPER
Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Cantor
First Melville House printing: January 2016
Melville House Publishing
46 John Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
and
8 Blackstock Mews
Islington
London N4 2BT
mhpbooks.com
facebook.com/mhpbooks
@melvillehouse
ISBN 978-1-61219-471-4 (ebook)
Design by Adly Elewa
v3.1
For my parents, who taught me most of what I know about new life
How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren’t, after all, made
from that bird which flies out of its ashes,
that for a man
as he goes up in flames, his one work
is
to open himself, to
be
the flames?
—
GALWAY KINNELL
, from “Another Night in the Ruins” (
Body Rags
)
Contents
CHAPTER 3: THE SINGULAR PILGRIM
CHAPTER 5: BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD
CHAPTER 8: BILLBOARD ARTIST OF THE HEART
CHAPTER 11: SLEEPING WITH NANCY DREW
CHAPTER 13: TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
CHAPTER 16: A MOST SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
CHAPTER 17:
TRADUTTORE/TRADITORE
CHAPTER 20: WITHOUT YOU, WHO KNOWS
CHAPTER 21: GHOST IN THE ANNEX
CHAPTER 22: THE ALL-IMPORTANT COUPLET
CHAPTER 26: RITALIN FOR THE HEART
CHAPTER 27: FALSE FRIENDS AND TRUE
CHAPTER 28: MIRACLES ARE POSSIBLE
CHAPTER 29: ROSH HASHANAH, MY ASS
CHAPTER 30: INTO THE ITALIAN SUNSET
CHAPTER 31: WATCH THE DING DONG, DEAR
CHAPTER 32: SECRETS OF THE CONFESSIONAL
CHAPTER 34: THE CHARMING CHIASMUS
CHAPTER 35: WHAT COMES AFTER ONCE UPON A TIME?
CHAPTER 38: ALWAYS WE RETURN TO DANTE
CHAPTER 40: YOU DON’T THINK THE APOCALYPSE CAN HAPPEN
CHAPTER 41: THE HERO’S DESCENT
CHAPTER 42: HEAD OF THE CANONICAL CLASS
CHAPTER 48: A BRILLIANT SOLUTION
CHAPTER 52: ICARUS DEFEATHERED
CHAPTER 53: NOT AS HE WAS, AS HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN
CHAPTER 54: THE INDISPENSABLE PIVOT
CHAPTER 57: LOVE, OUR HARROWING
CHAPTER 58: THAT AWESOME FLYER
CHAPTER 59:
SHUVI, SHUVI HA-SHULAMIT
PART ONE
THE CALL
1
THE CALL
Twelve thousand envelopes wanted stuffing, there were twelve thousand labels to affix. Mr. Ferguson, Administrative Manager of Legs-R-Us, had particular ideas about
proportional
folding, and straight
affixion
.
Affliction? Durlene asked.
Affixion!
I said.
Never heard of that, Durlene said.
Exactly! I said.
Why are you whispering? Durlene asked.
I was hiding in the supply closet, but Durlene didn’t need to know that.
You need to airlift me out of here, I said.
You need to stick it out, Shira. I can’t keep placing you if you keep quitting jobs.
I never managed to
stick
. I couldn’t look at the walls of the schlock gallery, I couldn’t bear the boss who kept telling me to
smile
or the funny smell in the church-office lunchroom.
I blamed Clyde. We’d gotten together last spring, as Good Scents prepared for Winter Wonderland. As a joke, the flavor techs threw a holiday party, complete with an inflatable Santa, and a menorah for me and the ancient receptionist. Clyde explained over imitation-raspberry-flavored eggnog that a woman’s sense of smell is more acute than that of a man. Allowed to sniff a variety of sweaty T-shirts, a
woman will naturally be attracted to the one with the most compatible DNA. It was only when he dabbed soy sauce behind my ears that I realized I was being seduced. We French-kissed under the mistletoe: I guess I liked what I smelled.
