An epic, kaleidoscopic story of four women connected across time and place by an invisible thread and their determination to shape their own stories, from the acclaimed author of The Mother Fault. One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye – and she his. How is her life connected to Hilda’s, almost a hundred years later, locked inside during a plague, or La’s, further on again, a singer working shifts in a warehouse as her eggs are frozen and her voice is used by AI bots? Let alone Maz, far removed in time, diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed? Is it by the river that runs through their stories, eternal yet constantly changing – or by the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed? Propulsive, tender and engrossing, this genre-bending novel is a feast for the heart as well as the mind and senses. For fans of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Michelle de Kretser’s The Life to Come and Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, it confirms Mildenhall as one of the most ambitious and dynamic writers in the country.
My Review
The Hummingbird Effect by Kate Mildenhall tells the story of four interconnected women living in very different times and spaces, but all close to Footscray, Melbourne. There’s Peggy working at the meatworks in Footscray during the 1933 where machines are being introduced to streamline the processes; Hilda in an aged care home during the Covid lockdowns in Melbourne 2020; La who dreams of becoming a singer while she works at a warehouse, her eggs are frozen, and AI steals her voice in 2031; and Maz and Onyx who spend their time diving in the river searching for remnants of the past in a dystopian 2181.
These women are all connected by the river that runs through Footscray and the Hummingbird Project, an AI program based upon the idea that small changes can have rippling effects on the future that are impossible to predict. Until eventually the AI decides that the best course of action is to get rid of humans.
I enjoyed the somewhat disjointed nature of this novel as it demonstrates the random and unpredictable nature of the Hummingbird Effect. It’s only after the fact that you realise the full impact of certain choices and how they connect with someone else’s story. I particularly enjoyed the 1933 timeline as it’s a period that I have a strong interest in and the Covid timeline brought on flashbacks through the way the information was presented in a bunched up panicky manner.
Highly recommended reading for fans of dystopia and speculative fiction. It really makes you think about the impact of current and historical events.
Details
Title: The Hummingbird Effect
Author: Kate Mildenhall
Published: August 2, 2023, Scribner Australia
Format: Paperback, 320 pages
RRP: $32.99
Source: Own Copy
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