![]() Julia’s narrative voice is not that of an eleven-year-old rather, it’s the voice of a young woman looking back at the way it was, the remembrance of a past with only a limited future: “We did not sense at first the extra time, bulging from the smooth edge of each day like a tumor blooming beneath skin.” She speaks of the news broadcast when a scientist warns of the earth’s slowing: “We have no way of knowing if this trend will continue. It is no longer turning as it used to and eventually it will no longer support any living thing. What makes The Age of Miracles a bit of a literary miracle itself is the author’s ability to weave together two disparate stories: one, an emotional recounting of an eleven year-old girl’s first steps into her future as a woman and two, an almost journalistic telling of how the earth will cease to be a viable planet as we know it. Science tells us that the earth will not exist forever, and this fact is probably not at the top of every reader’s list of favorite subjects. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Is it possible for a novel to be both an apocalyptic and a coming of age story? Or would that be a literary oxymoron, an impossible tale with a shelf life as unknown as that of planet earth? You can read Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel, The Age of Miracles as either one, but the bottom line is, “You’ve got to read this book.” ![]()
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