An Encyclopedia of Bending Time

Book excerpt: When her mother died, Kristin Keane felt that there had to be a way she could still reach her. Could she travel into the past and spend just a few more hours with her? Or perhaps there was an alternate timeline, a parallel universe-the kind of thing promised by theoretical math and physics-in which her mother was still alive. In An Encyclopedia of Bending Time, Keane tells the story of her mother's illness and the aftermath of her death in an encyclopedia of their lives together, and of time-both science and science fiction. Putting thinkers like Einstein and Newton in conversation with pop culture touchstones like Quantum Leap and Interstellar, this formally innovative memoir follows Keane's searching efforts to make sense of grief, memory, and whether it's possible to get back what we've lost.