When a novel starts with quotations from Heidegger and Baudrillard, you can expect some intellectual pretensions.  By the time you get to the theory of post-structuralist physics, you may feel overwhelmed.  However, in fact The End of Mr. Y is quite an adventure and while it plays around with a number of ideas, it requires no real understanding of physics or philosophy to enjoy it.  Indeed, academics may quibble with the interpretations of Derrida and quantum mechanics offered by various characters in the book, but they would do best to leave their reservations behind and just enjoy the ride. 

Ariel Manto is a graduate student with a background in science who attends a talk by an academic on a very rare nineteenth century book called "The End of Mr. Y," written by Thomas Lumas.  Ariel stumbles on a copy, and from it learns how to travel into other being's minds.  She is intensely curious about this other realm, yet at the same time she is cautious, because everyone else who has read the book has died or disappeared.  Her PhD advisor disappeared soon after she started at the university, and her life is now aimless.  She has no contact with her family, she has no boyfriend, and she has a seedy sexual relationship with another married professor.  She does not have anyone else to care for, and she may be somewhat self-destructive, so she is ready to be reckless.

The plot does not make a great deal of sense as it becomes increasingly metaphysical, but the story moves fast with the narrative perspective changing as she moves into different people and moves around the country.  Ariel starts at the university town where she lives, when one of the buildings falls down.  As she starts to learn the secrets contained in the book, she discovers that two men are following her.  She finds a way to escape them but she is constantly in fear of them.  She decides her only hope is to find her Ph.D. advisor, yet has no way of contacting him.  So she has to work out what to do.

There's a great deal going on in the novel to intellectually prompt the reader and generate some curiosity, and it's one of the richest novels written in recent years.  As with Thomas' previous novel, PopCo, she shows herself to be one of the most inventive writers working today.  She has some difficulty with the ending, having made the plot so complicated that really she has an impossible task.  However, the ending she finds works well enough, with a wonderful paradox.  Recommended.

Available in the UK from Amazon.co.uk: