Adam Thirlwell's 'The Future Future' Blends 18th-Century France with Anachronisms

Adam Thirlwell's new novel 'The Future Future' is set in eighteenth-century France but deliberately denies a coherent sense of time, studded with anachronisms such as messaging, freeways, and takeouts. The story centers on Celine, a woman newly married into society who becomes the subject of false salacious pamphlets. She struggles to find her voice against ambitious artists, socialites, bureaucrats, lovers, and dictators. Real historical figures like Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Marie Antoinette, Toussaint Louverture, and Napoleon appear, but their histories are not always respected, making the real seem like a stage set and the invented seem real. The novel also addresses contemporary issues: social media saturation, patriarchal violence, human/nonhuman relations, and mycelia, referencing anthropologist Anna L. Tsing. Thirlwell confronts present problems with Enlightenment roots, suggesting all histories are contingent. Published by Jonathan Cape at £18.99.