I was absolutely engrossed in this novel. It had everything I love in a book; it took me away to places I’ll probably never go (a deep sea trench and space, for example) and concentrated on the one storyteller with all other characters only really understood in relation to her – a deep dive into the head of a very interesting woman. Leigh is a Dutch biologist, very nerdy, interested in the beginnings of life on earth. She is also the survivor of a father’s beatings, a mother who consoled her but would not stop the beatings and a sister Leah protected so she didn’t get beaten. He died and she tried to make herself anonymous. I felt the father as an understated presence in the story. He is not the story. The story is the science.
Much of Leah’s childhood is related in a pragmatic fashion, ignoring the ‘show don’t tell’ rule of modern writing. She tells us, and moves on. She has an extraordinary life, there is lots to cover and Leigh is pretty straightforward. Her science, on the other hand, is – like most things we don’t understand – utter magic. The places she takes us are deeply compelling and we linger over the meaning behind things.
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