Laurel Salter was not always obsessed with fungi. But once her college science studies took her in that direction, there was no turning back. Many years later, it was fungi that drew her to a cave (just for a moment) while her son, Silas, slept peacefully on the beach nearby. That moment, of course, was long enough to change not just her life in this universe, but many lives in this universe and another universe as well.

What if our lives are mirrored or twinned? What if this world is just one-half of a duoverse, and on the other side time moves differently and our choices have similar but inverse consequences? What of parenthood and childhood? What of love and death? Such are the huge questions in Chloe Benjamin’s epic speculative novel, UNDER STORY, as Laurel and her partner, Eli, go beyond the known world to bring back Silas. Along the way, they discover truths about time, existence and human meaning. 

"Benjamin’s characters are so fully human, even when the world they occupy seems utterly alien. Readers willing to suspend disbelief will find much to enjoy and contemplate in this bold and imaginative novel."

Laurel and Eli met in high school. But it wasn’t until college, where they unexpectedly reunited, that they began their lives together. They became parents to Silas as they started careers in the sciences: Laurel in mycology, Eli in physics. The tragedy of Silas’ death drives them apart for years until they are brought together yet again, this time in Antarctica where Laurel is taking a year off from work and Eli has come to examine a mysterious “Arc.”

They come to believe that the Arc is a portal to another world. If they can move through it, they can retrieve Silas. Instead, they find themselves on the other side of the duoverse, where the world they lived in is reflected but not quite the same. Time, both that of a biological lifespan and that of history, is moving backwards relative to what they know. And, through the portal, it seems that they have taken the place of people they call “Laurel Two” and “Eli Two,” who may or may not have taken their places back home. While they wait for Silas to be born, they are searching for a portal to bring them back to their home side of the duoverse.

Though the world Laurel and Eli find themselves in is familiar --- with versions of the people they love the most, and their days occupied with the work they find the most compelling --- it is decidedly not their own world. Their wonder and discovery are always tempered by a longing --- for Silas and for home.

Ambitious and sprawling, UNDER STORY is a huge novel that only flags toward the end when the tale begins to careen almost out of Benjamin’s control. However, she mostly manages to rein it in, even as she introduces some new ideas near the finale. It is a beautiful, tender and strange book, full of all kinds of love and many kinds of loss. Benjamin’s characters are so fully human, even when the world they occupy seems utterly alien. Readers willing to suspend disbelief will find much to enjoy and contemplate in this bold and imaginative novel.