A Temporary Future: The Fiction of David Mitchell

O'Donnell (English, Michigan State Univ.; The American Novel Now; coeditor, The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Fiction) is the first to explore the complete works to date of British novelist David Mitchell (b. 1969). From Mitchell's first novel, ghostwritten, to his most recent release, The Bone Clocks (2014), O'Donnell dedicates a chapter to studying each of the author's six novels in detail. As he moves through his investigation, he analyzes plot, structure, and theme and connects recurring motifs and characters across the works. O'Donnell suggests that Mitchell's interest in temporality, the past and future, extends beyond the individual novel to create an ongoing and evolving project that serves as a model for thinking about the future and the various ways we construct it. Referencing theorists such as Jacques Derrida and other authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, and Haruki Murakami, O'Donnell makes a careful and clear argument for Mitchell's project as well as his place in literature. While O'Donnell intends the book for both a generalist and academic audience, the result leans heavily toward the academic.