The age of miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Random House, 2012
269 pp.
[Library copy]
The premise is simple but brilliant: one day the earth's rotation begins to slow; from that point things rapidly degenerate, endangering all life on earth. It starts with birds falling from the sky, the earth's gravity thrown off, confusing their internal system of navigation. It only worsens as the planet continues shifting and changing.
The story is told from the perspective of a young girl named Julia, around 11 years old when it all begins. Her parents - a father an obstetrician, her mother an aging former actress - partially due to an effect from "the sickness" associated with "the slowing," watch their marriage disintegrate as they grow further and further apart. Meanwhile, despite the increasingly dire conditions, children remain children. Julia struggles to grow into maturity enduring the ups and downs of budding adolescence, suffering through the politics of middle school.
Everyone else loves the book; that's what I'm hearing from all corners of the literary world. Praise is generous, though if you read the acknowledgments it quickly becomes clear a high number of cover blurbs were written by her writing teachers.
My problem with the book wasn't the storyline, which is an excellent framework. It's not Julia's narration, either. The flaw is I was seldom moved to feel any of this. What should have been a terrifying tale of man's fragility in the face of forces beyond our control was instead a monotone relation of happenings. All well ordered, mind. For that I rate her flawless; I just didn't care about her characters, save Julia.
