Orbital is a slim volume that packs a punch. It richly deserves the 2024 Booker Prize. Six astronauts from five different countries (two are from Russia) and their experiences in the International Space Station are the focus of the book. Yet the beating heart of Orbital is the Earth.
The astronauts live in a different space from the gravity- and atmosphere-based Earth. They also experience a different sense of time as they orbit the Earth sixteen times in the 24-hour period of the story. They see sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets as they speed over countries 250 miles below. From space, the astronauts experience a range of emotions about their earthly home.
In Orbital, we learn about each character in chapters written from their point of view. We learn about their families, their worries, what motivated them to undertake the gruelling training to become astronauts and the relationships between the six as they hurtle along in such close quarters. We learn fascinating details about how they live in space, sleeping upright in pods, eating pre-prepared meals from silver sachets and drinking water processed from their own urine.
Even more affecting is the majestic language used by Harvey to describe the Earth from space. She uses language like a painter when she writes of the colours and contours of the countries the space station passes over and the surrounding black of space.
We all seek novels that immerse us as we read and stay with us. Orbital is such a novel. I found it took me out of my own life so completely, it was like taking a space walk. Since reading it, I have installed a new background on my iPhone, a live feed of the Earth from space. I watch the shadow of the night recede from Australia when I wake and see the string of gold that lights the lower east coast as our continent turns from the Sun at night.
Cast aside any doubts you have about a book on astronauts and forget about needing an engaging plot.
Read Samantha Harvey’s Orbital and it will change the way you see our planet home.
You’ve inspired me to reread it Jenny