Orbital

I'm spinning around, get out of my way !

Dearest Readers,

I have absolutely no interest in space. None whatsoever.

I wasn’t the kid fascinated by planets—I was more into stories about alien abductions. So when I heard that the 2024 Booker Prize winner was Orbital, a novel by Samantha Harvey about astronauts in space, my immediate reaction was: not for me.

That was until everyone started telling me how good it was.

There’s something undeniably appealing about a short novel. Orbital is Claire Keegan-sized (my very official category name lol)—a format that’s becoming increasingly popular for books tackling big moral and ethical dilemmas. And while these kinds of novels can be hard to get right, golly gee, Orbital does it so well.

Orbital follows a group of astronauts hurtling through space as they reflect on their motivations for traveling to space, gaze upon the endless sunrises/sunsets and live the very stark realities of a journey beyond the earth’s atmosphere.

Samantha gurl did some serious research before writing this book. The DETAIL ! The things I learnt ! Like, did you know astronauts have to drink their own recycled pee?!

Within the novel there’s an ongoing undercurrent of existential crisis, with Harvey constantly nudging the reader to confront their own mortality and insignificance. Normally, as an anxious girly, that kind of thing would send me into a spiral but instead last night after reading a few pages I I fell asleep dreaming of floating in space and it was so peaceful. .

I often get quite existential, always have ever since I was a child. Not in a depressive way, more like sometimes I will stop and be like ‘hang on… I’m like being held down by gravity and the world is like, spinning really fast, and nothing essentially matters because we are all just…….. atoms?!’

Orbital captures that feeling perfectly:

“Until then what can we do in our abandoned solitude but gaze at ourselves? Examine ourselves in endless bouts of fascinated distraction, fall in love and in hate with ourselves, make a theatre, myth and cult of ourselves. Because what else is there? To become superb in our technology, knowledge and intellect, to itch with a desire for fulfilment that we can’t quite scratch; to look to the void (which still isn’t answering) and build spaceships anyway, and make countless circlings of our lonely planet, and little excursions to our lonely moon and think thoughts like these in weightless bafflement and routine awe. To turn back to the earth, which gleams like a spotlit mirror in a pitch-dark room, and speak into the fuzz of our radios to the only life that appears to be there. Hello? Konnichiwa, ciao, zdraste, bonjour, do you read me, hello?”

Samantha Harvey, Orbital

If you haven’t read Orbital I highly recommend doing so. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It got me thinking and made me appreciative of life on earth, even though we have Trump in office (BLAH).

Speaking of I had a really great chat with my son about Trump over coffee. Ten minutes later he piped up in the car from the backseat and said ‘Mum, I’m just going to describe Trump to you. He’s mean, unkind, hates women, pretends to care about Americans, he’s a scammer and doesn’t pay his taxes. But most of all? He’s a total idiot’.

I have high hopes for the next generation.

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Last week, I read Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy’s upcoming novel (out in March), and I’m almost hesitant to tell you just how phenomenal it is—I don’t want to tease. But holy shit, you guys—I was transfixed, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

The way I plan to sell it? A climate change thriller meets murder mystery meets family drama. The characters feel so fully realized, and the atmosphere is electric. I cannot wait for everyone to read this.

Also…. will these school holidays EVER END?!

I will finish today’s post with a current iPad exchange between my seven year old and me whilst I write this from bed, to prove to you that my parenting prowess is slipping.

And they say the English language is dead!

Happy Reading !

Jessie

(aka, ‘brah’)

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