An Ocean of Minutes

Starred review from May 28, 2018
Lim’s stellar follow-up to 2007’s The Same Woman concerns Polly Nader, who signs an agreement to travel through time from 1981 to 1993 to save her boyfriend. During a road trip in 1981, Buffalo residents Polly and Frank are stuck in Texas as state borders are closed to prevent a virulent strain of flu from spreading. Due to time-travel limitations, doctors are unable to travel back far enough to prevent the pandemic’s onset, but people are being recruited by the company TimeRaiser to help rebuild the future. After Frank is infected by the virus, the two decide to separate; Polly strikes a 32-month deal to work for TimeRaiser and plans to reunite with Frank upon arrival. Bonded workers spend their time doing jobs like riding exercise bikes for hours in order to power resorts and are disparagingly referred to as journeymen in a future where the country has been divided into the United States and America. Polly is in the latter (composed mainly of resorts for the wealthy), but Buffalo—where Polly assumes Frank is—is in the former. Polly’s lowly status and lack of funds keep her from knowing if Frank is even alive, and she isn’t allowed to leave America for the United States until her contract is up. She endures betrayals and despair as she tries to break free of her servitude and make the potentially hopeless journey to find Frank. Lim’s enthralling novel succeeds on every level: as a love story, an imaginative thriller, and a dystopian narrative. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners.

When Polly's boyfriend, Frank, catches the deadly flu that's sweeping the country, she travels forward in time as a kind of indentured servant in a desperate bid to save him. Narrator Lisa Rost-Welling's understated approach to emotional moments serves the story well as Polly suppresses her emotions and struggles to maintain a sense of balance when her plans to reunite with Frank go terribly awry. However, Rost-Welling's performance is uneven. Her character voices and accents are inconsistent, and her enunciation often sounds mushy. She succeeds best when voicing Polly, giving the character a willful na�vet� that highlights Lim's strong character development. E.C. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine