Quite major ... One gawps...at its breadth and ambition. It’s a transnational tour de force that squeezes and expands time like an accordion, or a pair of lungs ... With its accumulation of small, logistical details of life — meals, sleep, sex, transportation, the bathroom, excursions, paperwork, rules, differences in electrical outlets...it demands, and delivers.
Khemiri...uses this grim prediction as a way to drive suspense in his sprawling, ruminative, at times very funny saga ... A clever, relatively unobtrusive device to explore the passage of time ... The prose gets a little bloated, with secondary characters stacking up. But stick with it because the final 200 or so pages are where it all comes together ... [Khemiri] knows when to tell and when to show ... Ultimately it’s a character-driven piece, with memorable women ... Ina...is particularly well drawn. In her we have the most poignant—and hilarious—depiction of a highly strung older sibling I’ve come across in contemporary fiction ... The most tender, funny and engrossing family saga I’ve read since The Bee Sting (2023) … It’s ambitious, it’s full of life, it’s a triumph. It’s the big baggy novel I’ve been waiting for.
Immersive ... Sprawling ... At more than 600 pages, this novel is a challenge to the modern attention span. However, the multidimensional layers, its honesty and rawness, make it a triumph. The pleasure is in the writing and the fascinating lives Khemiri constructs. Like its structure, time with this novel flies.
