Reflecting on what matters most in your life (New Jersey suburban neighborhood close to Manhattan; present-day): There’s a good reason Olivia Strauss is Running Out of Time has been released on the first day of the new year when you may have made a resolution to follow a dream you keep putting off. New beginnings are reflection points, provoking thoughts on whether you’re satisfied with how your life is turning out and what you could do to make it better.

Since Angela Brown’s witty, wacky, science-fiction-y contemporary novel hits a realistic nerve, it’s a fitting way to kick off 2024 when Americans are making resolutions to “improve mental health” and “be happier,” according to surveys (see here and here).

What if you knew how much time you had left on this planet, would it change how you view your life? Your routines? Priorities?

These questions asked because Time is Olivia’s overwhelming issue, triggered when she turns thirty-nine. A mid-life crisis researchers, psychologists, doctors say typically spans your forties to sixties. Still, how typical is it at Olivia’s age to have a full-blown mental breakdown about her “expiration date,” disturbing normal life cycles, organized into four parts: Death, Life, Afterlife, and Birth? A tip-off you’re in store for some twists-and-turns you’re likely not see coming. What you will see is how relatable Olivia is – practically, emotionally, philosophically, existentially.

Repeatedly Olivia reminds us her nickname Liv sounds just like “Live!” Mortality, the fundamental theme. Would you even want to know how long you’ll live? What if you did find out?

That’s the fantastical premise of Liv’s comedic, disguised, serious tale that pulls us in through her earnest narrator’s voice. Ironically, she’s become possessed with finding her authentic voice – her literary voice, her unfulfilled dream to be a published poet. She knows what that felt like once, from her NYU college days when she entered a poetry contest, won, and was elated to see her name in print in a literary journal. Since then she hasn’t written a word. Marriage, motherhood, and moving out of energizing Manhattan to suburbia, likely in New Jersey where the author lives, are culprits. How big a role does Liv’s personality and mental attitude play?

Over the years she’s seen her husband Andrew, and her best friend Marian, both with history and fond memories from college, become writers. Andrew seemingly content to be a reporter for a local newspaper; Marian a food writer combining the pleasures of meals with the memories they hold. Liv, though, has been too busy, too frazzled, juggling parenting, home, and a job teaching high school English (though not her dream job), feeling she’s let too much time go by to write what she wants to. How can she carve out quality time for herself if she doesn’t have enough for her adorable, precocious, five-year-old son Tommy? Andrew, a devoted dad, is seen as spending the most time attending to Tommy’s needs and wants.

Liv blames suburbia. Not the first writer to tackle the ennui of conventionality, rules, expectations, feelings of shallowness, emptiness. Mind-numbing for some, causing them to act crazy (see https://enchantedprose.com/the-hundred-waters/); for others the American Dream. It’s a friendly neighborhood, overly so for Liv. Gossipy, superficial, insufferable. Then again, what does she really know behind the facades?

Liv’s mid-life crisis is fired up when Marian surprises her with a far-out, utterly unique birthday gift. A cockamamie crystal ball, psychic fortune-teller that uses DNA testing to fly into the magical, mystical stratosphere, claiming clairvoyance. Would you even undergo genetics testing that tells you how much time you have left to do what you want and be who you want to be? Would you even take this test seriously? What if you did?

Intellectually, Liv knows the new age-y wellness clinic Marian takes her too is a fake; emotionally a different matter when it gets in her head obsessively.

Depending on a number of factors – life circumstances, challenges, desires, mindset – you may not empathize with Liv’s mental health crisis. Blessed with a loving spouse, a terrific boy, a good roof over her head, a genuine friend, and only a hop-on-the-train-ride into a city that’s a state-of-mind for creativity – so what’s the problem you might ask?

For one thing, Marian tells her she’s not fun anymore. Yeah, she has responsibilities now, and she’s a modern woman who wants more for herself. Maybe if she stopped making to-do lists, elevating her anxieties, always rushing around, always late, falling short, on edge she could find time for a room of her own? Maybe not an original idea, but the zany plot is.

I’ve chosen to give Liv some slack since the only thing she does spontaneously these days is curse in front of Tommy, negativity that’s not enchanted, since she knows it’s not good for Tommy and wants to stop. Each time she errs, he reminds her, melting our hearts, to drop some punishment money into her “curse jar.” Will she stop? Can she?

While it all starts with Liv’s birthday, actually it starts with everyone’s nemesis: Time. “Time. That’s the problem, Olivia says on the introductory page. “There’s never enough.” You never know what life brings. The use of humor and absurdity deflects from dealing with the most consequential issues in a purposeful life.

Brown captures what many of us may have been doing since the pandemic: taking stock of our lives.

“Middle age may be dislocating for some,” says an Australian professor, “but there’s little evidence it is a period of crisis and despondency.” That statement made in 2019, pre-pandemic. There’s plenty of evidence the pandemic has caused Americans to reevaluate their lives. For instance, many have quit their unsatisfying, poorly-paid, unappreciated jobs, or had or found remote jobs they don’t want to give up for the perks, such as freeing up time at home and avoiding long-commutes. Time magazine’s headline on how the pandemic “caused a widespread existential crisis,” echoes Liv’s angst. Different reason, similar questioning. 

The prose sparkles with humor and ridiculousness, and the ultimate question of how much time we have in life makes for addictive reading.

“The problem is no one knows . . . Maybe tomorrow. Or next year. Or in a hundred years. Or never. Well, not never. But it sometimes feels that way, doesn’t it? Never. Never me. Never you. Never us . . . We still have time. Time to put off. To try again . . . To apologize. To meet for coffee. To take someone’s breath away. To say I love you. To kiss good night. To whisper good morning.”

Birthdays are like New Year’s resolutions, offering “a brief sense of hope,” when “we tell ourselves this will be our year.” Let’s hope so. For us, and a world needing all the brightness and hope in 2024.

Here’s to making more time for reading in the New Year, Lorraine