Review of Under Story by Chloe Benjamin

Benjamin's speculative fiction sets two members of a heartbroken couple in an unforgiving climate, facing an unexplained phenomenon, and seeking the impossible: to turn back time and undo a tragedy that upended their lives. This is intriguing--as well as science-heavy, unique, patiently paced, and without a neat and tidy ending.

In Chloe Benjamin's haunting, beautiful novel Under Story, Laurel is a biologist who studies fungi and is running from her past. She's hurting, and she's gotten as far away as possible from her home. Now she's working long hours outside of her profession, toiling in a kitchen at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

But as she settles into a new community, she is fascinated by an inexplicable glowing apparition in the Antarctic snow, which McMurdo residents call the Arc. Is the Arc simply a light, visible energy, or, as Laurel is beginning to imagine, possibly a portal to another time?

When Laurel's lifelong love and ex-husband Eli arrives unexpectedly with other physicists to explore the Arc, Laurel wonders if he and she might find their way to each other again--at least in order to understand the mystery of the Antarctic phenomenon.

Up to this point, I was completely hooked on the story and the mystery of the Arc as well as the past tragedy that collectively pull in Laurel and Eli. They enter into an unprecedented adventure, facing danger of the unknown and a significant call to bravery.

Parts of the story are science-heavy, as the scientist-main protagonists try to understand a universe/antiuniverse structure they dream about and attempt to prove real; I ultimately didn't grasp portions of this reasoning, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story.

Conceptually, the next phases of the novel are intriguing; Eli and Laurel spend extensive page time in a Benjamin-created, unique world in which they grow younger and everything moves backward as compared to the universe where they were born. This premise felt surprisingly unmoored and unsettling, but it was certainly interesting.

They share the hope of reversing time and then traveling back to their original world, thereby undoing the tragedy that occurred when Laurel and Eli were originally married. That intense desire to rework history carries them through various difficulties and surprising challenges. There are fascinating, strange elements (for example, the existence of another version of Eli and Laurel; and the manner in which humans are born and die in reverse--shiver shiver). But for me, the pacing of this section felt uneven as the story jumped around, and I struggled at times to continue reading.

Ultimately, Laurel and Eli's quest yields mixed results. This felt realistic but also disappointing; as I read this hefty, 512-page book I had actively cheered on the outrageously ambitious, complicated roller coaster of a love-inspired if ill-fated plan.

The couple's exploration of their past and revelations about their own relationships and key moments was a poignant and powerful aspect of the story.

I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Putnam.

More Books to Explore

Chloe Benjamin is also the author of The Immortalists and The Anatomy of Dreams.

You might want to also check out these other Bossy reviews of books that play with time.