The Other Valley
A Novel
Published on 27. February 2024
304 pages
978-1-6680-1549-0 (ISBN)
Description
*Soon to be a TV series*
Jimmy Fallon's Book Club Top Four Pick and a PBS Book Club Pick
For fans of Kazuo Ishiguro and Emily St. John Mandel, this "mind-bending take on time travel" (The New York Times) is about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future, and a young girl who spots two elderly visitors from across the border: the grieving parents of the boy she loves.
Sixteen-year-old Odile vies for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she'll decide who may cross her town's heavily guarded borders. To the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it's twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.
When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn't supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he's still alive in Odile's present.
Edme?who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly know Odile?is going to die. Sworn to secrecy to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil's top candidate. Yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, jeopardizing her entire future.
The Other Valley is "thought-provoking exploration of ethics, power, love, and time travel" (Kirkus Reviews).
Jimmy Fallon's Book Club Top Four Pick and a PBS Book Club Pick
For fans of Kazuo Ishiguro and Emily St. John Mandel, this "mind-bending take on time travel" (The New York Times) is about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future, and a young girl who spots two elderly visitors from across the border: the grieving parents of the boy she loves.
Sixteen-year-old Odile vies for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she'll decide who may cross her town's heavily guarded borders. To the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it's twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.
When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn't supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he's still alive in Odile's present.
Edme?who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly know Odile?is going to die. Sworn to secrecy to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil's top candidate. Yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, jeopardizing her entire future.
The Other Valley is "thought-provoking exploration of ethics, power, love, and time travel" (Kirkus Reviews).
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Scott Alexander Howard lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where his work focused on the relationship between memory, emotion, and literature. The Other Valley is his first novel. Connect with him at ScottAlexanderHoward.com.
