“The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August”, Claire North
Published August 8, 2014
Some stories cannot be told in just one lifetime. Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message." This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.
“Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it.”
Claire North is a speculative fiction powerhouse, and this book was my first foray into her works. This story is what happens when reincarnation gets tired of being mystical and decides to be brutally intellectual instead.
Harry August is born, lives, dies…and then is born again in the exact same place, same parents, but with the full memory of every life before. It also turns out there’s an underground society of people like him, quietly looping (and meddling) through history with mixed results. What starts as a philosophical exploration of time and self turns into a surprisingly gripping thriller when we meet the villain who’s smart, relatively charming, and hell-bent on destroying the world in the most academically terrifying way possible.
The author assumes you are an intellectual who is paying attention to what you’re reading, so as long as you are, you are rewarded with a story that has layers of emotional depth, moral ambiguity, and a healthy dose of time-travel headache.
Content Warnings
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of content and trigger warnings.
torture • suicide • murder • forced institutionalization • rape
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Owned: thrifted paperback