How To Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart | A Novel by Thom Dunn
"How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart" is a 105,000-word upmarket/speculative literary fiction novel in the vein of Emily St. Mandel, Jonathan Lethem, and Kelly Link, that tells the story of an addiction support group for conspiracy theorists who accidentally blow up reality.
How To Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart
How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart is a 105,000-word upmarket/speculative literary fiction novel in the vein of Emily St. Mandel, Jonathan Lethem, and Kelly Link, that tells the story of an addiction support group for conspiracy theorists who accidentally blow up reality.
Here's a slightly-more-detailed synopsis:
Jason Tavares is a successful financial analyst, until his obsession with chemtrails and 9/11 conspiracies nearly derails a billion-dollar real estate investment deal. When his boss forces him to seek help, Jason finds an addiction support group for conspiracy theorists just like him—or, well, maybe not just like him.
There's Monica Lund, a queer physicist with OCD who believes she's a Targeted Individual for government PsyOps because of her autistic son; Adam Oh, an aspiring rockstar with a disability whose creative block may-or-may-not be the result of a UFO encounter; Felix Buckley, a racist cop with a crippling fear of Lizard People (though he prefers the term "Saurians"); and Kyle Contee, a grad student who thinks the Mandela Effect can prove that her stillborn twin is still alive in an alternate timeline.
The group members aren't necessarily trying to change their beliefs; they're just trying to help each other cope with reality, and not let their conspiracies destroy their relationships. But Jason's not quite there yet. He starts to fall in love with Kyle, and his obsession starts to affect the lives of the other members. Soon enough, he discovers a conspiracy within the conspiracy support group itself that fractures their reality. But at the center of that black hole that's left behind, they might find the answer to the loneliness that brought them all together in the first place.
How To Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart is at once both darkly humorous and deeply empathetic. It deals heavily with neurodivergence and mental illness, as well as the general ambient trauma of life in our constantly-connected late stage capitalist world. As an author with a mental disorder myself, I wanted to twist the conspiracy thriller genre into something built on hope that helps readers experience strange new perspectives. It’s not about the downfall into conspiracism—it’s about those who’ve already fallen, and are trying to find a way to rebuild.
You can read some sample pages below; or, if you’d prefer, you can check out the first 3 chapters.