Cover: Julia Henze
‘She looked at him in surprise, like she couldn’t believe someone else understood. They were connected again, by something deep and ancient. It felt like the beginning of a universe.’ (p 175)
Now in paperback
I missed this US book when it was first issued in hardback (not hard to do if titles aren’t simultaneously published over here) but, thanks to social media, I caught up recently when the paperback came out. As happens, it was one of those rare books where I started to read the first page or two as soon as it arrived in the post, just to get a feel before adding it to my extensive reading stack, but didn’t put it down until I had read several chapters. By that time I was completely hooked and it leapfrogged the whole pile. As this indicated, it is a very remarkable and hugely enjoyable novel.
A remarkable mash up
One of the many ways it is remarkable, is that it conflates two story elements that might often be considered unrelated, even incompatible.
In part it is a very compassionate exploration of a child’s bereavement, following the loss of someone very close. Of course this is a theme with a with a good many exceptional precedents in American children’s literature.* The story also involves a very intelligent, if intellectually challenging story about time travel. It could well be said that this too is a theme exceptionally well served in earlier US writing.** However, it is more surprising to see both themes combined in the way they are here.
The novel’s exploration of loss, in fact more than one loss, experienced in more than one way, is handled with great sensitivity. Each iteration through the story rings tragically true and tugs at the heart strings. We feel every moment of sadness, anger and confusion alongside the vividly drawn main character, Finn as the events of the past play out through his present, a present as realistically conjured as the location in which it happens. Through all those moments it it is a story grounded in time, Finn’s time.
No ordinary travellers
Yet alongside this we and he learn about the way the female members of Finn’s family have the ability to travel through time. Now time travel occurs in many children’s books (and adult ones too, of course), but I have to say that, for me at least, even when a story is pure fantasy, I become less willing to suspend disbelief when there is complete disregarded of the logical complexities, potential paradoxes and likely consequences of such interference with time. Recent books that avoid this, seeking the true meeting point between science and fantasy, include Christopher Edge’s wonderful short novels, The Many Worlds of Albie Bright and The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day. And now here is another. Nicole Valentine is fully aware of recent theories of physics - relativity, chaos theory, quantum mechanics and such. Although her wonderfully imaginative tale is mind-boggling, sometimes confusing, by implying multiple timelines, even multiple universes, rather that alterations to a single lifetime, she never actually oversteps the bounds of (in)credibility.
A Traveller like me has to play out versions of history so many times with different choices . . . It’s hard to explain.’ (p 206)
Who, where, when?
The themes of her book are further explored in an important (and entertaining) contrast between science-loving Finn, and his fantasy-reading friend Gabi as they act out their apparently different viewpoints and, maybe, work towards a point where they meet. Their relationship and their dialogue are quite beautifully rendered and add much to the book’s appeal. Yet more intrigue is added by an enigmatic, anonymous voice that periodically intrudes into the narrative. It too is quite brilliantly handled and your guesses as to whose voice it may be also lurch back and forth over the course of the cleverly worked story.
That Nicole Valentine manages to weave these apparently disparate elements (real grief and time travel, scientific theory and science fantasy) together so successfully is testament to a fine and original writer. It makes for a most intriguing and compelling read. And when the two main themes of her story collide then the shock is cataclysmic, for Finn and for the reader. His world’s tectonic plates metaphorically crash together.
Mind blowing
In her thoughtful and very moving book, Nicole Valentine stretches our thinking and our imaginations and helps us towards that potential point where science and fantasy meet.
‘Quantum mechanics is the closest thing to real magic I’ve read about.’ (p 190)
However, ultimately her novel is as much, if not more, about real life, family and friendship as it is about time travel. As such it is a book of rich humanity. It is also extremely well written with language that vividly evokes its location (Dorset, Vermont, in New England) as well as the thoughts and feelings of its characters. It will be very well worth readers here in the UK taking the trouble to seek out.
Notes:
*e.g. Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia; Doris Buchanan Smith’s A Taste of Blackberries (both unmissable modern classics) and, more recently, Ali Standish’s superb The Ethan I Was Before.
**e.g. Madeleine L’Engle’s deserved classic A Wrinkle in Time and, later, Rebecca Stead’s disturbing gem of a novel When You Reach Me.
***For any young readers seeking an accessible introduction to relativity and some of the other more challenging ideas of recent astro and quantum physics, I strongly recommend Prof. Russell Stannard’s ‘Uncle Albert’ books. (The Time and Space of Uncle Albert; Black Holes and Uncle Albert; Uncle Albert and the Quantum Quest) Although they are now approaching twenty years old, they are still relatively up to date (sorry) and also seem to be still in print.