This is the story of Tom Hazard - a man who, due to a rare medical condition that causes him to age dramatically slower than a typical human, has been alive for 439 years and is searching for a new purpose. The narration jumps back and forth between the past and the present, and we discover that Tom has a daughter - Marion - who has inherited his condition and who might still be alive. This is what has kept him from giving up all these years, despite the loss and loneliness of his existence. He eventually joins a secret society of people like himself after they promise to help him find his daughter, but so far they haven’t been able to locate her. Not giving up, but hoping to find a new purpose, he moves back to London where he lived with his first love and daughter many years ago and takes a job as a high school history teacher. The secret society that Tom is a part of forbids him from forming connections with normal humans, but this doesn’t change the fact that he's slowly falling for Camille, the French teacher right down the hall. As Tom walks down the unfamiliar London streets filled with nostalgia, he tells us the stories of his childhood, his first love, and his encounters with famous historical figures such as William Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
After reading a couple of Matt Haig’s books now, I can say that I am definitely a fan. His writing makes you thoughtful and introspective. He plays with cliches, but not in a way that’s cheesy or shallow. Anxiety and Depression tell you over and over again how worthless things are, how worthless you are. Matt Haig doesn’t just tell you that there is hope (though he does that a lot). He guides you through Tom’s journey from hopelessness to multifarious possibilities of the future. As Tom begins to have these realizations, so do we. “And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live.”
Matt Haig’s books are like long, fierce hugs. Finishing them feels like finishing a good talk with a good friend.
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