When Abel Fleck learns that he suffered a severe stroke on the very day that the first ever photo of a black hole – christened M87* – was taken, something suddenly starts to resonate deep inside him. Feeling a mixture of exaltation, panic and paranoia, he keeps his blackouts to himself and hides his symptoms from the doctors while he tries to figure out the exact nature of his apparent bond with M87*.

With his brain experiencing a series of eclipses, Abel distances himself ever further, and perhaps irredeemably, from reality and his circle of friends as he searches for the connection, gradually slipping away from his own galaxy. A flight into space, an experience of freefall, and a giant existential slalom course… This is a tale of youth and the search for the self told through the prism of weightlessness, and a debut novel that is vivid, cosmic, desperate and yet celebratory.