Book Review and Author Q&A: All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

“…there’s no such thing as the life you’re supposed to have.”

First my review.

Wow – there is a LOT going on here. I was originally drawn to the book because of the time travel angle – one I really enjoy. I rather rapidly discovered that it was so much more than that though – mostly in a good way, but sometimes in a slightly over-reaching one… The main plot line is still about time travel and the law of unintended consequences. But the book is not just about time – it is also a love story, a family drama, a “be careful what you wish for” cautionary tale, a dystopian warning, a self-help/personal growth narrative, a techno-thriller, and an exegesis on the dangers of dissatisfaction. That’s a lot of things to cover in less than 400 pages…

For the most part, the multiple topics/genres are handled well, although there are times that they feel a little too much. There were some eye rolls, where I feared we were heading into trope territory, but they usually resolved themselves in some odd or unusual way that fed back into the main narrative points without too much distraction. All in all, this is a complicated work from a talented author – juggling that many ideas while still maintaining an essential, underlying theme (self-stated: “there’s no such thing as the life you’re supposed to have”) is difficult; doing it with aplomb in a readable, thought-provoking AND entertaining fashion must be nigh on impossible – yet Mastai manages handily.

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And now, I’m pleased to share some thoughts on the book and the writing process, courtesy of the author and the publisher (Dutton).

What inspired you to write your first novel and what gave you the idea for All Our Wrong Todays?
Since childhood I’ve been fascinated by the idea of the future we were supposed to have, the one the post-war generation imagined for us, and all the reasons it didn’t happen.

When I was growing up, there was this bookshelf in my grandparents’ house, and lining it were these old pulp science-fiction paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s that my grandfather had collected over the years. They were old and brittle and I was fascinated by them, especially the lurid, colorful painted colors depicting imagined planets and imagined futures. Even as a child, I knew there was a disconnect between the future these magazines depicted and the actual real world I lived in—even though, of course, the far-off futures projected in these stories had often already passed. I knew we were not living in the world these writers and artists imagined and I wondered what had gone wrong. When I finally sat down to write All Our Wrong Todays, I did it with that collection of old pulp sci-fi on the shelf next to my desk.

I also just think time-travel stories are super-fun. Most of them make no sense scientifically or logistically, but I still enjoy them. Over the years, I’ve built up a mental catalogue of all the things I’d do differently if I ever wrote a time-travel story—how I’d want to ground the mechanics in the everyday physics of our world, particularly as it pertains to astrodynamics, but also how I’d grapple with the profound emotional implications of this impossible technology.

Then it occurred to me that I could combine these ideas—a 1950s-inspired techno-utopian version of the present day and an astrodynamically plausible model of time travel—to explore themes that mean a lot to me. Like, for example, how the way we envision the future has shifted from utopia to dystopia over the past few decades. What our visions of the future say about us right now. Where we are going as a
culture and how we, as both a society and as individuals, can and must take responsibility for that direction. But, you know, with flying cars and unrequited love and time-travel paradoxes.​

But all of that is plot and theme. Nobody cares about plot and theme if they don’t fall hard for the characters. So I thought about who this story might happen to. And that’s when Tom came into focus for me. And once I found Tom, I figured out Victor, and Rebecca, and Greta. And then Lionel slid into place as this mysterious, crucial figure. But it wasn’t until I found Penelope—and Penny—that I knew I had to write the book. It’s their love story that made writing this novel not just something I wanted to do one day, but something I had to do it now.

There is a lot of science in the book. How much of that is real and how much of it is straight from your imagination?

I usually start with imagination and work backward to figure out how some fanciful notion of mine might actually work. So I read up on the technical and scientific elements once I know what the invention is I’d like to refine. When it feels relevant or would reveal something about the character, I include aspects of my research in the story. When it’s not necessary to either propel the plot or understand the character, I leave it out.

I mean, I could explain how I think traffic would work in a world of flying cars, but it doesn’t matter to the reader’s experience that I decided on a multi-layered grid that caps out at twenty stories above ground. In other cases, like how tau radiation could be used to anchor a time machine to a specific space-time coordinate, I fleshed out the science a bit more for the reader. But even there it’s a
combination of science and imagination because tau radiation doesn’t actually exist —and least not yet!

My approach is similar to a work of fiction inspired by autobiographical elements—I use the truth to establish a foundation of accuracy, but I don’t let it hold me back if colorfully embellishing the science makes the story more compelling to read.

What I’m saying is: this is not an instruction manual for building a time machine. But if you were already building a time machine, feel free to implement my ideas however you’d like.

The book spins off a narrative of alternative realties from a time travel accident. Why do you think time travel is such an enduring topic?

Time-travel stories are usually stories about regret. Human beings have a lot of regrets because our brains don’t work that well. ​

I mean, our brains are amazing organs, don’t get me wrong, but typically they’re so overwhelmed by the task of processing the sensory input of our present moment and running the automatic functions of our bodies that it’s hard to have a wider perspective on anything but ourselves for very long. And our memories are terrible. We absorb so much sensory information but remember almost none of it. In
terms of our lived experience, we can actually recall only a fraction of it. A lot of time-travel stories are just about understanding our own lives better, with the benefit of hindsight and an awareness of consequence. Which is to say—we wish we screwed up less. We’d like another chance, please.

There’s also something fundamental about the remorseless flow of time into an immediate, inescapable present. Nobody likes to be chained up, not even by the fundamental nature of the universe. Also, time travel is totally fascinating. You get to go to the past! And everything you do has massive, reality-altering consequences! You, random person, has to the power to change… everything! Because time-travel stories are also stories about control. They’re typically premised on the idea that you can control your destiny, if given a chance to try again, and they’re typically concluded with the realization that just because you can change the past, it doesn’t mean you should. Not all of them, of course, but most of them say: you can’t control this and if you try, you’ll be sorry. Which makes those of us without access to a time machine feel better about our lives—sure, you may have regrets about your past decisions, but the life you’re living is the best case scenario.

If you had a time machine, where would you go and why?

Well, my mother died quite suddenly in 2001, so I’d go back to spend time with her, specifically, but also the version of my family that was lost when we lost her.

Aside from that, I’d mostly want to observe moments from my own life with more fidelity than I remember them. I’d like to see what they were really like.

But those are personal answers. On a grander scale… I’d like to see the first theatrical production of Macbeth in 1606. Also, my great-aunt was dessert chef to the Sultan of Morocco in the 1930s, and apparently she made the best pastries of all-time, but I never met her, so I’d like to go back there and taste them for myself. So, yeah, Shakespeare and dessert.

Out of all the creative, dazzling inventions in Tom Barren’s futuristic 2016, which is your favorite (or alternatively, which would you choose to actually exist today)?

Well, practically speaking: the pharmaceutical patch that regulates your blood alcohol to whatever level you select, so you never embarrass yourself at parties by drinking too much.

But as someone who chronically runs late: teleportation.