How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Fiction
Published: Feb.6/18. HarperCollins
Just by glancing at Tom Hazard most people would see a forty-one year old working at Oakfield Secondary School in London, teaching history. But there is more to the man than meets the eye. Though he may look in his forties, Tom is actually very old – four hundred and ninety three years old, born in March 1581. It’s not that he’s immortal, but developed a rare condition during puberty referred to as “anageria,” those with this condition age at an alarmingly slow pace. Why the public doesn’t know this condition is the belief that “human beings simply don’t accept things that don’t fit in their worldview.”
Tom and the others would be looked at as freaks, outsiders and who else knows what would happen to them. It becomes dangerous for people who don’t have this condition who find out about it and believe it – their lives are cut short by an organization called the Albatross Society that was founded to keep the anageria a secret and protect those who have it.
Tom’s story is quite a unique but sad one. Readers alternate between chapters set in the present and different time through out history where Tom has lived; his lute skills impressed the great playwright William Shakespeare, he lived through the great fire of London, sailed the seas with Captain Cook and even had a brief encounter with Charlie Chaplin.
But, while these experiences might be out of this world and enriching, Haig shows his readers the more depressing side of living with such a condition. Tom’s lost all the people he held dear in his life, and century after century watching people you know and love leave this life takes a such a toll on ones soul. Haig does a remarkable job at showing this through Tom’s point of view, its not that he’s depressed, but just tired.
When he meets Camille, Tom finds himself falling for her, and that in it self a problem for obvious reasons. The question is now what should Tom do? Risk secrets coming out and putting his and Camille’s life at stakes, or take a chance at potentially building a much-wanted future with love and companionship?
I quite enjoyed Haig’s book, and would recommend it to those who enjoy novels that have that past and present coming together aspect. Also, for those lovers of history, this is definitely one you shouldn’t pass up.
Kirsten Lowe studies at Athabasca University.