mood music: running up that hill – kate bush
This was the strangest little novel I have read this year. But, it was one of the most original plotlines I have read in a long time. I had to do real googling to understand the background details that inspired this story because one of the characters is based on a real historical figure.
Our unnamed protagonist, a British-Cambodian civil servant in London, is recently promoted to Bridge for a new pilot program in a new government ministry. Her assignment is to live with, assist, and monitor her designated ex-pat, an individual from history who has been brought to the future to research the feasibility and effects of time travel. The protagonist’s ex-pat is English Officer Graham Gore, our previously mentioned historical figure. Graham was First Lieutenant on Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to the Arctic, a failed mission that resulted in the death of everyone in the expedition after the ships became icebound in the frigid waters of modern day Nunavut. It’s theorized that some of the crew died from pneumonia and tuberculosis, but most passed from exposure and starvation.
As protagonist and Graham cohabitate in government-sanctioned housing, their awkward relationship evolves into something much more intimate. Graham adapts pretty well to his new environment, learning how to use Spotify, how to shop at the supermarket, and how to take public transportation. But protagonist grapples with the ethics of this time travel experiment, especially when some of the other ex-pats are having a hard time adjusting to life in the modern world. She also feels guilt when she has to inform Graham about the fate of his expedition team.
Sidenote – there is an AMC series also based on this same expedition, and Graham Gore is a featured character. If you’re so inclined.
There’s this debate happening on GoodReads about whether or not Bradley plagiarized this work from a Spanish television series titled El Ministerio del Tiempo. The show is about time travel, as many pieces of media are, but that’s about the only similarity the two works share. It’s quite unfair that people are seemingly reviewing this book not having watched the show.
I really liked this book. I could not have predicted the turns it would take, which made me appreciate the author’s ability at storytelling. It’s something I would read again in the future, I feel like during a second reading I’ll pick up on things that I missed at first pass, as the novel is dense with details. Also, the reason I called this a kind of fanfiction is the author is on record saying that she was fascinated by the Arctic expedition and wanted to write a story about Graham, as she had become mildly obsessed with him specifically.
