Terrace Story & The Ministry of Time

Terrace Story ~ Hilary Leichter

Terrace Story is a collection of linked short stories.

In the first story, Terrace, Annie, Edward, and their new baby, Rose live in a cramped city apartment. Annie feels that this tiny apartment is proof of her failures in life, because they cannot afford a bigger apartment. When Annie goes back to work after maternity leave, she meets up with co-worker Stephanie, who took care of Annie’s clients while she was out. Annie invites Stephanie over for dinner. While there, Stephanie opens a closet, which inexplicably opens onto a lovely terrace, complete with outdoor furniture and a view that does not match the reality (it faces the wrong direction). Annie and Edward pretend that the terrace has always been there, and they have a wonderful time outside, enjoying their meal in the expansive space. Alas, once Stephanie is gone, the terrace is as well.

In Folly, George and Lydia (baby Rose’s grown daughter) attend a funeral, but neither of them can really remember whose funeral it is. Lydia begins to focus on the idea of death, which is natural since her profession is writing scientific articles about extinct animals. When Lydia has their baby, the couple drifts apart. Affairs happen.

Remember Stephanie, from Terrace? Fortress is her story, and tells of her ability to expand space, and how it has shaped her life in ways profound and not, the gifts it has given her and the things that it has destroyed.

Cantilever tells the story of Rosie, who works on a space station in a future where we’ve messed up the Earth so much that people are now living in pods or on moons. Rosie is interviewing an older woman who is hoping to move to one of the pods. The older woman has connections to Annie, Rose, and Lydia.

Leichter is a beautiful writer, I felt like this book was full of subtext, beauty, and sorrow. I came away from it feeling like maybe I wasn’t smart enough to get all of what it was trying to teach me, but I enjoyed it anyway. My favorite stories were Terrace and Fortress, perhaps because they were the most straightforward. I might try to read it again, but maybe not the way I usually read physical books, which is in bed at night, where I don’t get much read before dozing off. Recommended, I think.

The Ministry of Time ~ Kaliane Bradley

This is a bonus review, because I just finished this book last week. If I don’t throw in a few extras, I’m going to end November still behind in my book reviews!

The British Government has obtained a Time Machine, and is experimenting with it to determine whether time travel is safe and how it might best be used. Their test is to find historical figures (not necessarily famous, but people who they know where, when, and how they died) and bring them to modern day London. There, they will do physical and mental tests upon them. Their end game? We’re not sure.

The Guinea pigs of this experiment, called ‘Expats’, are referred to by their year of death. They are each assigned a ‘Bridge’, who will live with them and help to acclimate them to the present day. The Expats, in order of death, are:

• Lieutenant Thomas Cardinham (1645) – A soldier extracted from the Battle of Noseby.
• Margaret Kemble (1665) – Poor woman extracted from the Great Plague of London. Tavern keeper? Barmaid? I don’t remember. She was a spicy delight.
• Anne Spencer (1793) – Woman extracted from the French Revolution.
• Commander Graham Gore (1847) – Royal Navy commander.
• Captain Arthur Reginald-Smyth (1916) – A soldier extracted from the Battle of the Somme.

Our narrator is the Bridge to 1847 (Graham Gore), who was a member on the doomed Franklin Expedition, based on a real life expedition in which all 129 members of the crew were lost while searching for the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The unnamed narrator is a half Cambodian, half British translator in the British Government, who translates from Cambodian to English. As the child of an immigrant herself, and as someone who often ‘passes’ but not always, she understands the feeling of ‘otherness’, and I think this understanding helps her identify with the Expats, who are definitely confused and confounded, delighted and horrified by modern sensibilities and conveniences.

I liked this book a lot, though it seemed to go from rom-com love story to espionage thriller fairly abruptly toward the end. That’s OK, recommended anyway for a fun read with some moments of lovely writing.