Meyer writes in a sort of literary surrealist hybrid, obviously troubled by the fate of humanity and the world itself. Thematically and stylistically her work echoes books like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or The Bone Clocksall of these works employing a more flexible, non-linear narrative framework than straightforward realism to grapple with the challenges of the future.
Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The “experiment” that Mila and Josh took part in is an extension of the novel’s prologue; an untethered scene in which an ageing astronaut contemplates his own mortality and the thought of his daughter growing up alone. He is surrounded by a mysterious rust-coloured lichen and hints to magic tricks that he will show his daughter. There are many hints that magic exists throughout the novel, which Meyer presents as both power and parlour trick but equally as giving hope and potential.
At one point, Josh remembers “something he heard about taking drugs, that sometimes it’s like a zipper opening and that if you keep trying to pull up the zipper you’ll have a terrible trip but if you just let the zipper open and accept whatever spills out you will have a good time”. The drugs, the magic, are incidental, portals to a version of truth. The power of this novel comes from Meyer’s capacity to imagine so expansively beyond the limits of our current existence.