M-theory: a novel

by Tiffany Cates

Donovan James enjoys his routine. Wake up. Catch the El. Teach high school English. Run the track. Return home on the train. Repeat. In a turbulent Chicago, this routine keeps his mind from wandering. Well, from wandering into the less-immediate world anyway. You see, Donovan can’t seem to stop watching the people who frequent his morning commute, or from dissecting their lives based on these regular but limited encounters. He believes that he knows them well.

That is until one morning, he runs late, and by a series of minuscule events he runs into her, the lady in the blue coat, a passenger on his train car whom he has seldom paid attention. The moment is fleeting, but now everything has changed. The routine is disrupted. Lives are not what they seem. Soon Donovan will be caught up in the investigations of Detective Lesley Powell as well as a train full of other lives and their lies, careening toward something mysterious and sinister. Donovan knows where he got on this train, but where will he get off?

In M-theory, Tiffany Cates meticulously layers America’s societal, spiritual, and moral tensions in a plot that travels through the streets and elevated tracks of Chicago, creating a riveting thriller with an endearing love story at its beating heart. As inventive and intelligent as it is entertaining, M-theory marks Tiffany Cates as an important voice in American fiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tiffany Cates spent five years navigating Chicago’s transit and weather systems before moving to Oregon and earning her MFA in Creative Writing from Oregon State University. Strongly influenced by her degrees in philosophy and psychology, Cates writes around themes of personhood, the distance between self and other, and matters of free will. She is the founding editor of Townsend, a literary journal devoted to long-form fiction writers. Tiffany Cates lives in Corvallis, Oregon.

PRAISE FOR M-THEORY

“The mysteries in M-Theory are rooted in the hearts of its characters, in their desperate desires to connect and to do the right thing. Such is Tiffany Cates’ gift: even as we see their flaws, we are compelled to hope—that the lovers will find happiness, that the detective will save the boy, that the guilty will be brought to justice. This is an unsettling novel for unsettling times, a riveting [book] that reminds us that tragedy can be but one step away.”

“At the core, this story is about how the ideas we have about and needs we place on others don’t always align with reality. On top of that, these perceptions and desires are constantly in flux . . . [M-theory] is a reminder that it is essential to stop and question how we perceive others. To ask ourselves what is actually true and what we have conveniently chosen to believe–about others and also about ourselves.” – Entropy, January 2021

“Alternating between characters, as well as between the past and the present, M-Theory is a thrill ride that is never quite what it seems. Its events and characters converge in surprising, unsettling ways, illuminating a spider’s web of interdependence that leads to violence.” – Foreword Reviews, March/April 2021

Book Details

Title: M-theory: a novel

Author: Tiffany Cates

Publication Date: February 9, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-936097-34-0

$17.95

Dist. by Publishers Group West
www.pgw.com, 800-788-2123

Available at your favorite local bookstore, on bookshop.org, or from Baobab Press affiliate Sundance Books and Music

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