As she did in her second novel “The Dreamers,” Karen Thompson Walker places her characters in the midst of a strange yet believable crisis. Here, for no discernible reason, the rotation of the Earth slows down. The gravitational pull is altered and tides change. Long periods of daylight are followed by long periods of night. Some wildlife begins to die while other types flourish. Plants are no longer able to grow without the aid of artificial light.
The plot line reminded me a lot of Susan Beth Pfeffer’s YA series: Life as We Knew It. Both feature an adolescent girl trying to navigate the normal obstacles of growing up but in a world that is literally falling apart. Here, Julia is 11 (a bit younger than Pfeffer’s Miranda) but still dealing with similar worries: fitting in, catching the eye of a boy she likes, buying her first bra. Julia’s narration is as familiar as it is haunting. Social awkwardness at the school bus stop is juxtaposed with the anxiety of watching her mother stockpile canned goods “just in case.”
This is where Walker excels: blending the everyday with the extraordinary. Her focus on the characters’ lives rather than their predicament is what makes her stories compelling. Julia’s first love is just as relevant as the lengthening days. It’s what most of us do in the end isn’t it? Worrying about global warming doesn’t stop us from making dinner, going to work and school, or weeding our flower beds. We try to cling to some kind of normalcy.
“The Age of Miracles” is a melancholy book about the end of the world that doesn’t dwell on the why or how. Instead, it focuses on what it means to really care about someone when the days are numbered.
Walker is a beautiful writer and really has a keen understanding of human need. I read and reviewed “The Dreamers” a little while ago and loved it. Reviews that I read tended to favor this novel over “Dreamers,” but I have to say that I disagree. While I enjoyed this book, it seemed more like a practice run for her second novel. (I had similar feelings this year about Sally Rooney’s “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People.”) While both of Walker’s books are thematically similar, I found “The Dreamers” to be far richer and more fully fleshed out than this novel . That’s not to say that this isn’t a good book, just not as great as her follow up.