The Museum of Human History
Starting from the premise of a young girl who falls asleep without aging, the debut novel explores memory, relationships, and the obsession with preserving the self. Its back-and-forth between fantasy and realism leaves a quiet afterimage.
Work Information
Around a sleep that seems to stop time, family and strangers alike begin to change little by little.
A debut English-language novel published by Tin House. As Maeve remains asleep without aging after a near-drowning, the people around her are drawn into questions of memory, loss, and the desire to remain young.
Review Summaries
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The narration crosses the border between fantasy and fiction with elegance, and the emotional movement around memory and loss is carefully handled. Though quiet in subject, it leaves a clear outline after reading.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Tin House
- Published
- 2023-08-01
- Pages
- 256 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 14.05 x 1.65 x 21.49 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781953534910
- ISBN-10
- 1953534910
- Price
- 3432 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Literary
“This daughter of Mary Shelley delights and excites the border between story and science.”―Samantha Hunt “A novel about what we want and also what we can’t escape.”―Allegra Hyde “A haunting chord of a novel that will hang in the air long after you turn the final page.”―Tiffany Tsao “Reads like a documentary retold as a dream retold as a mystery novel. What a wise, good-hearted debut!”―Kate Bernheimer After nearly drowning, eight-year-old Maeve Wilhelm falls into a strange comatose state. As years pass, it becomes clear that Maeve is not physically aging. A wide cast of characters finds themselves pulled toward Maeve, each believing that her mysterious “sleep” holds the answers to their life’s most pressing questions: Kevin Marks, a museum owner obsessed with preservation; Monique Gray, a refugee and performance artist; Lionel Wilhelm, an entomologist who dreamed of being an astrophysicist; and Evangeline Wilhelm, Maeve’s identical twin. As Maeve remains asleep, the characters grapple with a mysterious new technology and medical advances that promise to ease anxiety and end pain, but instead cause devastating side effects. Weaving together speculative elements and classic fables, and exploring urgent issues from the opioid epidemic to the hazards of biotech to the obsession with self-improvement and remaining forever young, Rebekah Bergman’s The Museum of Human History is a brilliant and fascinating novel about how time shapes us, asking what—if anything—we would be without it.
Rebekah Bergman ’s fiction has been published in Joyland, Tin House, The Masters Review anthology, and other journals. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
Reviews
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kept my interest but hard to remember all details—purposeful?
As I wrote the title review I realize that maybe it’s on purpose that it was hard to recall all the details as I read this book. It kept my interest and I like the authors style of writing.
Related Literary Awards
- The Philip K. Dick Award Edition 42 (2023) ・special award