Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Masad (All My Mother's Lovers) spins an affecting tale of aliens, alienation, and archives. It's anchored by the workday assignments and converging obsessions of an assistant at a library, known only as the Archivist, who begins reading a manuscript about real-life interracial couple Barney and Betty Hill. In 1961, the Hills claimed to be abducted by aliens in the New Hampshire woods upon returning from their honeymoon in Canada. The manuscript, held in the library's Queer Writers Archive, embellishes the story of the media-shy couple, who gained notoriety among UFO followers. The Archivist also reads letters addressed by lesbian Phyllis Egerton, who left her homophobic mother in 1962 New Hampshire to start a new life as a proofreader at a Boston newspaper and aspired to become a science fiction author, to her estranged girlfriend. The material gives the Archivist solace as they deal with chronic pain from a genetic disorder and angst at a world that doesn't always accommodate their gender nonconformity. Moreover, the story of the Hills reminds the Archivist, who also hails from New Hampshire, of their own close encounter with aliens as an elementary school student in 1996. The interconnected narratives reveal the power of stories and archival material to reach across time and help an isolated person find themselves. Readers will be swept away. (Sept.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Three gripping narratives entwine as supernatural encounters and personal revelations transform lives in the 1960s and the present. This transporting novel brings multiple times and places to life through the storytelling of a researcher called the Archivist, whose nongendered pronouns are deployed gracefully. They're consumed by two troves of records, both beginning in 1961 but radically different in detail and tone. In one, Barney and Betty Hill, rational civil servants in an interracial marriage, are astonished to see a spaceship as they're driving down a dark highway. The sighting--and the encounter that follows--alters the course of their lives as they become ambivalent public figures amid a rising din of UFO spotters and disbelievers. (The Archivist knows something about alien visitors, too, but is even more reluctant to claim the association.) Through the second set of historical files, the Archivist tracks the life of Phyllis Egerton, a young writer driven from home when her parents discover her romance with her best friend, Rosa. Her new life in Boston is thrilling--Masad paints an electric picture of Phyllis' double life as a newspaper copy editor and a lesbian finding her people, sartorial style, and science-fiction writing voice--but necessarily clandestine, since this is the very real world of the '60s: Public homosexuality is a criminal act. We get Phyllis' story firsthand through her yearning, then defiant, letters to Rosa. In contrast, the Archivist takes more liberties with Barney and Betty Hill's story, since their records are less personal. Without apology, the historian fills in the gaps for the reader, telling us both the facts and their elisions or outright inventions. It's an education--they know the histories of civil and gay rights, and from experience, they "have always felt drawn to those who are ridiculed, misunderstood, shamed." Miraculously, Masad makes this dense braid of stories easy to follow, elegantly blending serpentine sentences, endearing and intimately observed characters, natural dialogue, and playful, generous asides to keep the reader in enthralled suspense. A dazzlingly original testament to companionship, curiosity, and faith in ourselves in times of fear and loneliness. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
