It’s March 1980, and Carol Girard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. They have just had their first child, and though Carol is struggling with the challenges of new motherhood, her future seems clear. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is ultimately determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. But these beings are eleven light-years away, and nothing is known about them other than the fact that they seem to know we exist too. And so begins a decades-long exchange of messages with this mysterious, faraway civilization.
A slow burn ... But this is to the book’s credit. Through Oliva’s skillful character development, the novel’s grounded, human story is just as engrossing as the mysteries swirling in outer space ... Against the backdrop of unprecedented scientific discovery, this fraught mother-daughter relationship becomes the heart of the book ... Bittersweet.
An inventive, moving family drama set against the backdrop of a wondrous but plausible development, Oliva’s third outing will delight readers who appreciate psychologically nuanced, character-driven, speculative fiction.
