Future for Curious People

By: Gregory Sherl

Narrated by: Heather Corrigan, Justin Torres

Meet Evelyn and Godfrey. Evelyn is breaking up with her boyfriend, who’s passing out advertisements for his band on a snowy street corner in Baltimore. She's seen their dismal future together at Dr. Chin's office: she and her boyfriend, both many years older, singing "Happy Birthday" to a Chihuahua and arguing about cheese. She hopes for more. Meanwhile, Godfrey is proposing to his girlfriend, Madge, who is not quite willing to take that leap; she wants to see their future together first - just to be sure they're meant for each other.

The Future for Curious People follows Evelyn and Godfrey's soon-to-be-entwined lives, set in motion by the fabulist premise of a world with envisionists like Dr. Chin. In struggling with their pasts and possible futures, the characters encounter the mysteries of sorrow, love, death, and fate. It’s a story that will capture you with its brightness, its hopefulness, its anxious twists and turns. It is a love story that is ultimately a statement about happiness and how to accept our fleeting existence.

©2014 Julianna Baggott. Recorded by arrangement with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc. (P)2014 HighBridge

Critic reviews

"Comic and exuberant, The Future for Curious People is a fun romp through some pretty serious territory about love and the vagaries of the past and the future. With a robust sense of the absurd, Gregory Sherl brings us a touching story about one couple’s journey through the impossible task of narrowing the future down to a certainty. A fine and tender tale for anyone who has tried to let go of the past and envision the future while falling in love. Some satisfyingly quirky minor characters, too." (Rhonda Riley, author of The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope)"I’m pretty sure reading The Future for Curious People by Gregory Sherl is making me a better person. Or at least believe in love. This wonderful book is a love story about love stories - the ones we make up for ourselves, the ones we tell about other people, and ultimately the ones we write down in novels. The pages burst with laugh-out-loud scenes and crisply original setups. The characters smart from social criticism that is very now. But under this casual cool, behind the snappy dialogue and hipster flair, this is a novel with one idea: True love is possible, and so is a true love story. I loved it! Can’t wait to share it with everyone I know!" (Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine)"Somewhere between Jorge Luis Borges' "The Garden of Forking Paths" and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you will find Gregory Sherl’s warm, intelligent debut novel. . . . As charming as it is wise, and Sherl’s words will find their way into the hearts of many." (Roxane Gay, author of An Untamed State)"A whipsmart novel about the obsession of love and the love of obsession. Sherl writes prose with a poet’s grace; his future could not be brighter." (Aaron Gwyn, author of Wynne’s War and Dog on the Cross)