Anna Karenina left her husband for a dashing officer Lady Chatterley left hers for the gamekeeper Now Alice Coombs has her boyfriend for nothing 8230 nothing at all Just how that should have come to pass and what Philip Engstrand, Alice8217s spurned boyfriend, can do about it is the premise for this vertiginous speculative romance by the acclaimed author of Gun, with Occasional Music Alice Coombs is a particle physicist, and she and her colleagues have created a void, a hole in the universe, that they have taken to calling Lack But Lack is a nullity with taste8212tastes it absorbs a pomegranate, light bulbs, an argyle sock it disdains a bow tie, an ice ax, and a scrambled duck egg To Alice, this selectivity translates as an irresistible personality To Philip, it makes Lack an unbeatable rival, for how can he win Alice back from something that has no flaws8212because it has no qualities? Ingenious, hilarious, and genuinely mindexpanding, As She Climbed Across the Table is the best boymeetsgirlmeetsvoid story ever written