As She Climbed Across the Table
First edition cover
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| Author | Jonathan Lethem |
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| Cover artist | Jacket design by David J. High |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
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Publication date
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February 17, 1997 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 212 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | (first edition, hardcover) |
| OCLC | 35145971 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3562.E8544 A9 1997 |
| Preceded by | The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye |
| Followed by | Girl in Landscape |
As She Climbed Across the Table is a 1997 novel by the American writer Jonathan Lethem. This satirical science fiction story is set on the fictional campus of Beauchamp University in Northern California. Particle physicist Alice Coombs rooms with narrator Philip Engstrand, an anthropologist researching conflicts between and within disciplines. Their relationship drives the romantic aspect of this story. The novel deals thematically with many of the philosophical issues pertaining to modern quantum physics, as well as human interaction with artificial intelligence.
Lack is an emptiness created in a particle collider. Professor Soft theorized that the experiment would replicate the big bang and opened a wormhole to a microscopic universe and that this wormhole would close shortly after it was created, leaving the new universe attached to reality. The wormhole however is not accompanied by any events to indicate it is a physical object and so it is named Lack. Lack is characterized by its inexplicable preferences, as some particles and objects enter the space where Lack should be and fail to appear on the other side. Professor Alice Coombs is the first to discover that Lack only absorbs certain items. It takes her keys, but not a paperclip. Its only consistent property seems to be that, when Lack refuses an object once, it would forever refuse to consume that object.
The physicists in Coombs's lab become obsessed with Lack, which appears to have its own personality and preferences. Alice develops a personal relationship with the artificial intelligence that they have created, while Philip becomes jealous of their relationship.
Philip begins to get involved after B-84, a laboratory animal (cat) enters Lack. This consumption of B-84 causes a campus wide protest. In an attempt to impress Alice, Philip breaks up the protest by giving a speech about how a single cat being destroyed is minimal and their efforts would better spent on larger problems in the world. Instead of impressing Alice, she becomes defensive of Lack and locks herself in its chamber.
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