The Age of Miracles

Summary (from the publisher): Luminous, haunting, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles is a stunning fiction debut by a superb new writer, a story about coming of age during extraordinary times, about people going on with their lives in an era of profound uncertainty.

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life--the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

With spare, graceful prose and the emotional wisdom of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker has created a singular narrator in Julia, a resilient and insightful young girl, and a moving portrait of family life set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.

Review: "This was middle school, the age of miracles, the time when kids shot up three inches over the summer, when breasts bloomed from nothing, when voices dipped and dove" (43). In many ways, this novel is a coming of age story, but for 11-year-old Julia, her adolescent years are dramatically altered when the rotation of the earth suddenly begins to slow. What had been a relatively ordinary life in a California suburb, worrying about fitting in at school, boys, and training bras, suddenly becomes a life marred by worries that the world is ending. As time passes, the earth continues to move more and more slowly. Birds begin dying, whales wash up on beaches by the thousands. This is the story of a family striving to go on living their live in an altered world. 

Told in first person narration, Julia tells the story of "the slowing" from the perspective of the present, reflecting on her past childhood. Along the way, she spends a lot of time reflecting on events, contrasting how she felt then compared to the present and what she knows now compared to when the changes first began. This structure gave the narrative a feel of constant foreshadowing; the reader is ever aware that things will only continue to get worse in Julia's world. For example, when Julia is seemingly happily riding to a party with her mother, the narrator tells the reader, from the distance of the present, "We were driving a silver station wagon, although the police report would later describe it as blue" (132). 

Yet this constant reflection from the narrator also struck me as trying too hard to make the novel appear profound, such as Julia's commentary on the effect of the slowing on her family: "Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It's possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much" (34). Although this narrative device certainly impressed upon the reader the reality that Julia's world would only continue to alter and worsen, I was frustrated by this constant intrusion and heavy-handed revelation of the present from the narrator. In short, yet another instance of an author failing to distinguish between showing and telling. 

Much of the prose in this novel was appealing - both graceful and haunting, such as the description of the abandoned county fair; "The Ferris wheel stood only partially erect: A single red bucket dangled from a single spoke like the last fruit of summer, or like autumn's final leaf" (67). Yet despite seemingly spare prose, this novel dragged for me. As a reader, I felt like I waited the whole book for action to really start, only to be disappointed. And other attempts at artistic prose fell flat, most notably Julia's description of the risk of bullying at the bus stop: "No supervisor supervised here" (37). 

I did appreciate how subtle the dystopian elements of this book were. The whole world doesn't collapse in an instant, instead small changes build over time. Additionally, Julia still seems very real in that, while concerned about the changes to her world, she's also busy worrying about being accepted at school and discovering flaws in her parents. In sum, although imperfect, this was an interesting take on the apocalyptic tale. 

Stars: 3