“The Age of Miracles” Book Review: Captivating, Speculative, and Miraculous

The Age of Miracles, a speculative fiction coming-of age-story, is Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel. It’s a look into the lives of 11-year-old Julia and her family during “the slowing”—due to unknown causes, the earth’s rotation has shifted, and the days are getting longer. Like, 40 hours of sunlight longer.

Walker speculates (hence, speculative fiction) what would happen if the earth’s rotation was altered. Gravity changes, and birds fall. The clocks are entirely off from sunlit and nighttime hours, forcing people to choose between “clock time” and “real time”. Scientists and ordinary people alike worry how much more sunlight or darkness their crops can handle in one sitting before they can no longer live on this planet. Can humans’ circadian rhythms adapt? How much longer until humans can no longer live on Earth?

Meanwhile, Julia is in middle school. Her father is a doctor, her mother a drama teacher. The slowing affects their lives in different ways, but it affects everything nonetheless. Walker succeeds in balancing what I’ll call world building—her descriptions of this unique time and place—with the microcosm of her characters’ world. The science-fiction premise drives the story as much as its characters.

Arguably, most of the characters are somewhat underwhelming. The novel is narrated by an older, nostalgic Julia, in first-person from a future perspective. This allows for some interesting and haunting moments of foreshadowing. Julia at 11 years old is excessively shy and extraordinarily ordinary in a way, but this narration from such an ordinary perspective makes her story all the more relatable and real. That is Walker’s greatest triumph—the novel’s utter realness.

Despite some things feeling like they might not have reached their full potential, there are so many people I want to share this novel with. I want to give it to my astrophysics-major friend, because Karen Thompson Walker actually consulted an astrophysicist to make sure the novel’s scientific developments made sense. I want my friend who’s not so into sci-fi to read it, because the driving force of the novel is how the characters deal with the age they’re in. And I want my friend who loves sci-fi to read it, because I truly admire the way Walker fleshes out this premise in so many angles while from one perspective.

As she goes through middle school during the slowing, Julia questions coincidence and fate, and the power of one event, one chance change. Walker’s debut novel is smart and compelling. Its premise excited me, and the novel did not disappoint.