An Ocean of Minutes

by Thea Lim

This is another book that has been getting a lot of hype this year.

It is the story of a young couple Polly and Frank.  In the early 1980's a flu pandemic is spreading around the world.  Frank gets the flu and will die unless he gets the right medicine.  Polly is told she can save his life if she agrees to take a time machine and work for a company for a number of years in the future.  Frank doesn't want her to do it but Polly agrees.   She and Frank agree that they will try to reconnect again in the future at a specific hotel.  They will try to reconnect by being at that location every Saturday in Sept.
Polly is told that she will be sent to 1995 but she is actually sent to 1998.  She finds the future very distopian, much of the infrastructure is gone.  She is sent to live in a rundown building and given a job as an upholsterers assistant. Conditions are tough and food is scarce.They are refurbishing furntiure for new resorts in this dystopian world.  Polly tries to get word to her aunt and Frank about the fact that she was sent to a different year.  She tries to find out if her aunt or Frank are still alive but gets no news.  She finds that the hotel she had planned as a rendez vous location is no longer there but is actually a port.  When she goes there on a Saturday it is thought that she is trying to escape so she gets into trouble.  She finds that the US has been divided south from north and that it is very difficult to get to the less devastated north.

At one point her supervisor asks her to steal a package from an office, she does this.  The package contains the high school year book for the high school Elvis Presley attended.  Her supervisor feels it will be valuable to the rich people who still exist in the world.  For some reason, perhaps to avoid consequences for his poor productivity and lack of results, her supervisor turns Polly in for stealing the yearbook.  She is demoted and sent to a job where she cuts down plates to make tiles.  She lives in a crowded dorm with living conditions even worse than her previous accommodation. 

Then one day, the concierge of her former building asks her to marry him as he will get economic benefits from being married and for her pretending to be pregnant.  He tells her they won't have to have sex.  She doesn't want to go along with it but then he tells her that he has found contact information for Frank.  She does marry him but eventually abandons him when he attempts to have sex with her, his plans for a false pregnancy have collapsed and he has lost all his money.

Later Polly finds that she has been released from her contract.  It turns out her"husband" felt guilty for what he did to her and has paid to get her released.  He has bought her a ticket so that she can join her boyfriend.   She gets to "America" and is shocked to learn that her boyfriend married and has a daughter.  He married a rich woman and has become very wealthy.  Her boyfriend and his wife are now separated. Her boyfriend takes her to live with her aunt but he does not come to visit her.  He bought the aunt a condo out of loyalty to her aunt and Polly.

After everything she went through for him she is shocked that he abandoned her by marrying another woman and his very cool reaction to her.  He finally does come to see her and tells her he stayed away because he was ashamed. He says he had tried to find her in the past.  It seems like they will rekindle their relationship.

I found the book disappointing, I thought it was plodding.  I think that Frank got off too easy.  I am not sure I would be as forgiving as Polly is.

While the book did have an interesting premise, the dystopian world etc. was not all that interesting.  Despite everything she was going through Polly seemed to maintain her commitment to her boyfriend and aunt, it is surprising that her boyfriend, with his much easier life, couldn't have lived up to his commitment to wait for her.