Karen Thompson Walker

Karen Thompson Walker has a unique, quiet writing style that I love. Her novels are serious, futuristic-like narratives that unwrap in a controlled, beautiful way. These are 'what if' literary science fiction - the settings are just like our own life but something happening beyond the control of the population. It's incredibly easy to get submerged in these worlds but it is sometimes an unnerving immersion. In her last book, The Age of Miracles, the earth's rotation was slowing down. In her show more latest, The Dreamers, there is a mysterious illness that causes people to fall into a deep sleep. Woven into these fascinating, often philosophical explorations, are heart-felt family connections and humans caring for others and for the environment. Thompson Walker quietly asks us to look at ourselves - how we would act and feel if catastrophe struck, what would really matter, and what we would be willing to do to protect those we love show less

First of all, I haven't cried while reading a book in a long time, I don't even know if I could tell you the last time I cried while reading.

What I loved about this book was how it was so much about coming of age but so much about what would happen if something like the earth slowing actually happened. So many dystopian novels or post-apocalyptic novels paint a grim picture of life. "The Age of Miracles" is told from the perspective of a young girl who is just learning to navigate the world show more as young woman when disaster strikes. And society tries to remain the same, and the government doesn't dissolve, and somehow, things remain the same yet not the same.

I really appreciated that in this book people still fall in love, people still go to school and work. And, I think, the last line of the book is one of my favorite (though one of the saddest) endings I've ever read. show less

"Confusion is normal."

Walker's prose floated me into this story so smoothly it felt like I was one of the dreamers, yielding to the narrative like a sickness. There is so much mystery to savor in this novel. It may even get savored a bit too much.

The plot stretches thin in the middle and there seems no reason for the frugality. The narrative engine is so rich, she could have given the reader plenty more, and if plot were merely to serve some other overarching interest, well I didn't see show more enough evidence of that. The result was my panic about 80% through the novel when I realized just how much the ending would make or break this work. I can tell you I felt satisfied enough to give this a pretty good star rating (i.e., I didn't get mad at the author) but I'm not convinced she filled out this idea as well as she could have.

I wouldn't be so disappointed if I didn't think Karen Thompson Walker was an excellent writer. The narrative structuring is elegant and she is able to create a form of pastiche reporting that blends together really well, propelling the story forward without relying on the psychological motivations of a central character. It's a kind of sociological storytelling I am keenly interested in. The narrative form of our century, really.

Do I recommend this? Yes. There is enough here to haunt and delight. Do I wish it were longer? Perhaps she'll write a sequel. show less

The rotation of the earth has begun to slow, and slow, and slower and the ramifications are great. Julia comes of age during this period and we see how she adapts to the ever changing conditions. It seemed to me that you could substitute global warming for the earth's slowing and you could imagine the consequences. I think that is what the author is doing. The prose is extremely readable. The prose flows like a running stream.

In The Age of Miracles, the world is ending not with a bang so show more much as a long, drawn-out whimper. And it turns out the whimper can be a lot harder to cope with. The Earth's rotation slows, gradually stretching out days and nights and subtly affecting the planet's gravity. The looming apocalypse parallels the adolescent struggles of 10-year-old Julia, as her comfortable suburban life succumbs to a sort of domestic deterioration. Julia confronts her parents' faltering marriage, illness, the death of a loved one, her first love, and her first heartbreak. Karen Thompson Walker is a gifted storyteller. Her language is precise and poetic, but style never overpowers the realism she imbues to her characters and the slowing Earth they inhabit. Most impressively, Thompson Walker has written a coming-of-age tale that asks whether it's worth coming of age at all in a world that might end at any minute. Like the best stories about the end of the world, The Age of Miracles is about the existence of hope and whether it can prevail in the face of uncertainty. show less