Free Dispatch from the Future by Leigh Stein

RAISE FOR DISPATCH FROM THE FUTURE
    “I love these poems. They are cool and horrified at their own coolness. A masterclass in phrase-making.”
    —JOE DUNTHORNE , FABER NEW POET AND AUTHOR OF SUBMARINE
    “Leigh Stein’s poems know how to laugh it off after a stunning tumble down a flight of stairs.”
    —ROB MACDONALD , EDITOR OF SIXTH FINCH
    “
Dispatch from the Future
is a force of nature. Like other great American poets before her—Bernadette Mayer, Jorie Graham, William Carlos Williams come to mind—Leigh Stein is not afraid to make the everyday beautiful. As if she says in these poems, ‘Don’t worry, we all feel this way.’ We do. Read this book.”
    —DOROTHEA LASKY, AUTHOR OF AWE AND BLACK LIFE
PRAISE FOR LEIGH STEIN’S THE FALLBACK PLAN
    “Beautiful, funny, thrilling and true.”
    —GARY SHTEYNGART , AUTHOR OF SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY
    “
The Fallback Plan
is to this generation what Rick Moody’s
The Ice Storm
was to the previous generation, and
The Catcher in the Rye
before that.”
    —SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS , LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
    “Stein, 26, captures the voice of the young 20-something prodigal daughter with the clarion call of authenticity in her debut novel.… Stein’s light, accessible, self-deprecating prose makes this coming-of-age story a pleasure.”
    —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
    “Cheeky self-assured prose.”
    —O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
    “A masterwork of the post-collegiate babysitting genre.”
    —NEW YORK MAGAZINE
    “Her enchantingly funny and insightful debut novel
The Fallback Plan
 … has a universal quality, capturing a generation’s angst quite like
Franny and Zooey
did when it was published in 1961.”
    —CHICAGO TRIBUNE
    “27-year-old former
New Yorker
staffer Leigh Stein nails the latest postcollegiate trend—moving back in with Mom and Dad … Stein seems poised to become the Lena Dunham of contemporary fiction, given the way
The Fallback Plan
’s storyline deftly bears with it a steady commentary on today’s flatlining economy and a generation of college grads (an estimated 85 percent of the class of 2011 moved right back home) who have to wonder if we’ll ever actually grow up and become real adults.”
    —ELLE MAGAZINE
    “Readers will endorse Esther Kohler’s voice as being not only funny, but also true. It echoes long after her story ends, and
The Fallback Plan
is a novel everyone under 30 will relate to with familiar pangs of self-loathing and sympathy.”
    —BOSTON GLOBE
    “Intimate, urgent, and laugh-out-loud funny, Leigh Stein’s novel bravely investigates the splendor and tragedy of the end of youth with a sensitivity and lyrical deftness that will not disappoint. Think
Franny and Zooey
. Think
Goodbye, Columbus
. Think of this book as your next great read.”
    —JOE MENO , AUTHOR OF THE GREAT PERHAPS
    “… an existential crisis of lost 20-somethings that pretty much everyone can relate to.”
    —NYLON MAGAZINE



DISPATCH FROM THE FUTURE
    © 2012 Leigh Stein
    First Melville House printing: June 2012
    Melville House Publishing
145 Plymouth Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
    www.mhpbooks.com
         Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Stein, Leigh, 1984-
Dispatch from the future / Leigh Stein.
  p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-61219-135-5
I. Title.
PS3619.T465D57 2012
811′.6–dc23
    2012014733
    v3.1

For Sarah

I
     
    If you attempt to back out of the planet, turn to page 77.
    If you decide to take the time to consider other options, turn to page 50.
    Edward Packard,
Through the Black Hole
     
WARNING
    There are better ways to break a heart than Facebook,
    such as abandoning your pregnant girlfriend at Walmart
    like that guy did to Natalie Portman. If you read this book
    sequentially, bad things may happen to you, but only as bad
    as the things that would have happened to you anyway.
    If, however, you do not read this book sequentially you may
    find that you are suddenly aboard a sunken pirate ship,
    staring into the deep abyss, and