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A review by shareorshelve
The Midnight Club by Margot Harrison
5.0
If you could go back in time and change the past, would you?
That's the premise of Margot Harrison's novel The Midnight Club, which reunites four college friends—Sonia, Byron, Auraleigh, and Paul—25 years after the death of their friend Jennet.
While her death was labeled a suicide, Auraleigh is convinced that someone else was responsible for it. She was there the night Jennet died, but she blacked out and has no memory of what happened. She invites her friends back to their Vermont college town to relive their memories leading up to the night of Jennet’s death to uncover the truth.
By taking a drug called sog, they travel through their memories. Sog lets the young glimpse the future. For the older, it offers the chance to relive past memories. Bridging the gap between memory and reality — between what was and what might have been — is as captivating as it is haunting. But each of the four friends has secrets they don't want to be revealed.
Their shared grief and nostalgia coalesce into an examination of how choices reverberate through a life, both intentionally and unexpectedly. Harrison skillfully captures a universal yearning to comprehend the threads of our actions.
In the Behind the Book excerpt at the end of the novel (something I wish more books had), Harrison confesses that The Midnight Club was decades in the making. A project born from a college idea that required the vantage of a life more lived before she could tell the story in its current form. This maturity infuses the work with philosophical weight, urging us to consider what it means to be, as Harrison phrases it in the story, unstuck in time — looping between past regrets/nostalgia or endlessly seeking the future.
The Midnight Club is a page-turner that also invites thoughtful introspection. I wondered if, given the chance, I would dare alter my past. Like the characters in the book, I found that the answer to that question isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
This story, which I hope will be adapted for the screen, is one of my most memorable reads of the year.
The Midnight Club is a thrilling mystery and a contemplation on life, memory, and the inexorable march of time.
This is a SHARE.
The Midnight Club by Margot Harrison will be released on September 24, 2024.
That's the premise of Margot Harrison's novel The Midnight Club, which reunites four college friends—Sonia, Byron, Auraleigh, and Paul—25 years after the death of their friend Jennet.
While her death was labeled a suicide, Auraleigh is convinced that someone else was responsible for it. She was there the night Jennet died, but she blacked out and has no memory of what happened. She invites her friends back to their Vermont college town to relive their memories leading up to the night of Jennet’s death to uncover the truth.
By taking a drug called sog, they travel through their memories. Sog lets the young glimpse the future. For the older, it offers the chance to relive past memories. Bridging the gap between memory and reality — between what was and what might have been — is as captivating as it is haunting. But each of the four friends has secrets they don't want to be revealed.
Their shared grief and nostalgia coalesce into an examination of how choices reverberate through a life, both intentionally and unexpectedly. Harrison skillfully captures a universal yearning to comprehend the threads of our actions.
In the Behind the Book excerpt at the end of the novel (something I wish more books had), Harrison confesses that The Midnight Club was decades in the making. A project born from a college idea that required the vantage of a life more lived before she could tell the story in its current form. This maturity infuses the work with philosophical weight, urging us to consider what it means to be, as Harrison phrases it in the story, unstuck in time — looping between past regrets/nostalgia or endlessly seeking the future.
The Midnight Club is a page-turner that also invites thoughtful introspection. I wondered if, given the chance, I would dare alter my past. Like the characters in the book, I found that the answer to that question isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
This story, which I hope will be adapted for the screen, is one of my most memorable reads of the year.
The Midnight Club is a thrilling mystery and a contemplation on life, memory, and the inexorable march of time.
This is a SHARE.
The Midnight Club by Margot Harrison will be released on September 24, 2024.