Jenni Fagan’s satirical fifth novel, The Delusions, opens with an epigraph from the Kurt Vonnegut-inspired science fiction curiosity Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer. “The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.” The afterthought leaks back into the original statement, underpinning and undermining everything.
Infinity and eternity are both unavoidably present in The Delusions, which takes place in a vast anteroom to the afterlife, “the largest soul terminus in existence”. It’s the metaphysical equivalent of a big-box store, where they help you sort your false perceptions of yourself from what you actually were, before you’re Processed and sent on to whatever comes next (or, should you fail the Questionnaire, Dissolved on the spot). Though to be honest, no one in Processing is certain what that next thing is.
