Cronebooking: Fiction for Crones

When I started thinking about Croning, I didn’t imagine fiction reviews would be part of it. But reading and writing are what I do for a living, novels are my carb-free comfort food, and I figure crones read because you’re reading this, right? Welcome to Cronebooking.

Today is pub day for The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.

In this impossible to categorize novel, a British civil servant living in the not-too-distant future gets a huge pay raise and a new roommate as part of a government program. The new roommate is Graham Gore,1 a commander on Sir John Franklin’s search for a sea lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific through the Arctic—an expedition which began in 1845 and ended with no survivors.

So… time travel. There’s also romance. Of course there are going to be comparisons to Outlander. Nevertheless, I initially found the comparison facile, as well as a disservice to the book and to readers. By the time I finished The Ministry of Time, though, I had changed my mind.

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For one thing, in my rather expert opinion, this book hits all the marks required of a romance novel—and if literature snobs find this off-putting, it’s their loss. More importantly, though, The Ministry of Time reminds me of Outlander in that I became thoroughly absorbed in the world of this book. Like Outlander, this is a book I have daydreamed about and spun my own little fan fictions around. Bradley explains in her afterword that this book was a product of her obsessions, and I have now become obsessed with her obsessions.2

Unlike Outlander—no shade to Diana Gabaldon, who is very good at what she does—this book dazzles at the level of craft. As engrossed as I was in the narrative, I often found myself pausing to appreciate the language. I also laughed—actually out loud sometimes—a lot. And Bradley has contemporary, real-world concerns that are eminently worth exploring. (P.S. The Ministry of Time also qualifies as science fiction.)

I guess The Ministry of Time is the GMA Book Club Pick for May?3 Their description of the book skews screwball comedy and focuses on Graham Gore. The former makes sense to me in a facile way because the book is funny. But a lot of the humor is in the deadpan, disaffected voice of the aforementioned civil servant, who is both protagonist and narrator. This is why the focus on Graham Gore seems wild to me. Graham Gore goes on a journey for sure—as do his fellow expatriates from the past—but this novel is the story of the aforementioned civil servant as she records it. Graham Gore is a beautifully realized character and central to the plot, but it’s weird to make him the point-of-view character for reviews and copy when this novel has a first-person narrator who is not him. (Also, it’s pretty clear that whoever wrote that GMA post didn’t read the book—which I don’t blame on them, as I imagine that they do not get paid to read books.)

It turns out that Cosmo is also excited about The Ministry of Time. The magazine has called this book “this summer’s hottest debut” and described it as a “gripping new romance that is also part spy thriller and part time traveling wonder.” The Cosmo review includes an excerpt.

As someone who sold and marketed books for a goodly spell and still works in the industry, I am surprised and intrigued by how this book is being presented. I approached it as “literary”4 fiction but, as I suggest above, it’s not crazy to call it a romance novel.5 But—and I say this with no disrespect to romance novels—maybe it’s more accurate to say that The Ministry of Time is a romance novel operating at a deeper level than other romance novels. That feels kind of shitty, though? The job of romance writer does not support a lot of creative exploration or self-expression.6 Maybe it makes sense to say that The Ministry of Time is what’s possible when writer who has the resources and the freedom to go where their weird obsession takes them?

Anyhow, this is a book that is going to linger in my imagination for a while, and when my memory of it starts to dim, I will have the pleasure of reading it again. I look forward to returning to this experience.

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Now for the coming attractions… Housemates and an interview with Emma Copley Eisenberg.

The third issue of Croning (the zine, issues one and two available now) is shaping up nicely. It includes an interview with Eisenberg, whose first novel is coming out on May 28. It’s definitely one of my favorite releases of 2024, but I’m still collecting my thoughts about the book and my conversation with the author, so I’ll just share this bit of praise from Kirkus Reviews: “Emotionally rich and quietly thought-provoking, this is simply a stunning fiction debut.” (full review)

While you wait for this novel and Croning Summer 2024, check out the latest edition of Frump Feelings, Eisenberg’s excellent Substack!

And before you go! If you haven’t read my interview with Griffin Hansbury, author of Some Strange Music Draws Me In, please do!

Griff is one of my best friends and his novel is just lovely. But don’t take my word for it! Writing for Bust, Rufus Hickok says: “[Hansbury] captures growing up trans in a place where any deviation from the norm is seen as a threat, and how kind elders can guide us toward becoming ourselves. At once an analysis of gender, sex, and class, this novel is populated by characters so real, you’ll wish you could hang out with them and keep them safe.”

Happy reading, crones.