Meg Charlton

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Meg Charlton’s novel Voyagers is a debut both compelling and moving as it explores the possibilities of great friendship and extraterrestrial life.

That was the only time I ever broke the fourth wall. On Monday, the producer asked me how I’d enjoyed the party. Had I met anyone interesting? I told him no, not really. I remember the next two days being consumed by the producer’s rage at a lost FedEx package, and then by a tardy town car, and then by my impending vacation that I used to travel home to see my mom, and during which, she died.

A new murder mystery about grief, epigenetics, and surfing. This story is part of Future Tense Fiction, a monthly series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives. Manny actually did remember him. He’d been working at Happy Rent-a-Car for a while, and yes, after five years the tourists did all start to blend together.