An Ocean of Minutes
“People wishing to time travel go to Houston Intercontinental Airport.”
In September 1981, the world is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic. When Frank gets sick, Polly agrees to a radical plan to save her lover—time travel has been invented to thwart the virus. If she signs up for a one-way-trip to the future to work as a bonded laborer, repairing the ravages of the pandemic, her employer will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs. Polly promises to meet Frank again in Galveston in twelve years.
But when Polly arrives, Frank is nowhere to be found, and she is alone in a divided America, with no status and no money. When the search for Frank demands unthinkable sacrifice, Polly must ask herself: what does it cost to hold on to the past, and what does it cost to let it go?
Editions
Praise
Nominated for Canada Reads, the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, the ALA Reading List for Science Fiction, the Giller Prize, and the Sunburst Award
As heartfelt as it is philosophical. Lim lays bare the complexities of migration and displacement, while offering a clear-eyed meditation on the elusive nature of human devotion.
Both unsentimental and deeply moving at the same time. A devastating debut.
A timely novel that brings a fresh perspective on the complex subjects of migration and displacement that plague our world today.
A profound meditation on the inhumanity of class and the limits of love. It takes immense talent to render cruelty both accurately and with honest beauty – Lim has pulled it off. This is a story about the malleability of time, but at its core lives something timeless.