THE MIGRATION BY HELEN MARSHALL - BOOK REVIEW

The Migration is a book that I have had floating around my unconscious and conscious mind for a while now, trying to grapple with how I feel about it. It’s by far one of the more unique books I’ve read this year and I find that it doesn’t really slide into the normal categories of like vs dislike. It’s a narrative unto itself that seems to generate genre as it goes, a story that proves how essential it is to be laid out by properly talented hands.

To start, one thing I have taken note of is how many people have stated that this book is evocative of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. Being completely honest, I don’t think that comparison holds up. I don’t say this as a criticism but I feel like in this massive landscape of sequels and remakes and reboots, it’s almost gotten to the point where many have a harder time paying attention to something if they can’t put it into the context of something else that came before it. Migration does deal with the subject of death and breaks it down to an emotional experience. But for me, Pet Sematary is about seeing the fear of death stripping away a person’s humanity and reason. With Migration, I think almost the opposite is happening, that the closer these characters seem to draw to the experience of death and the more inhuman they become, the more their essential humanity seems to swell on the page.

In the universe of this book, a mysterious illness has affected the younger members of the world’s populations. Hospitals scramble to try and understand what is happening and why. This health crisis is one that hits home for the protagonist as her younger sister first becomes infected and then succumbs.

The tragedy of the experience of these characters seems to be how society can both embrace and support while at the same time holding at bay and containing those who have been deemed a threat. Do those who are supposed to be curing a disease gradually become also a force dedicated to wiping away those who carry that disease? At that point, who becomes the victims and who becomes the monsters?

And even then, this is not necessarily the stereotype of the faceless military swooping down to kidnap ET and make him into a test subject. In the story, we see a society that is under full assault by a virus that no one understands. And while the authority figures in the book do make unsympathetic choices in how they deal with things, you do still get a sense that down deep, most of them are trying to do the right thing and protect all these people being affected.

This is a story that doesn’t have an overreaching, booming narrative voice in the sky to ground everything and provide a solid thread to follow. And while at times I do think the story suffers as a result of this, I also can see how the emotional experience for the reader is heightened by being essentially bonded with the experience of the protagonist.

This book spoke to me as a parent, seeing the mother trying to deal with the loss and suffering she sees in her two daughters. And it was in this moment that I did see somewhat of a connection to the heart of Pet Sematary. Like how the young daughter in that case is grappling with the notion of death and what it might mean for us, the characters in this book live in constant fear of the changes their bodies are undergoing and what could possibly lie on the horizon for them. Death is the ultimate unknown in our path and Helen Marshall underlines that nicely with this book.

I was also affected with how the mother has to first suffer the illness and eventual death of her younger daughter. But that experience is only heightened in the raw and poignant moment in which she finds out that her other daughter is also infected. How do you deal with that? The knowledge that the horrible, emotional journey you just went on was essentially reset back to the start. Could you do it? Most people will reflexively answer “yes” but I appreciated that Marshall took the time to really deal with this, to consider the reality of that situation instead of allowing us to blindly see ourselves as the only perfect parents in existence.  Is the mother’s decision in this book selfish? Maybe. But is it also honest? I think so.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to make a character that always does the right and moral thing. It’s equally unchallenging to get the reader to turn on a character that only makes morally questionable decisions. Where writing becomes art is when we see a character that does things we don’t like but because we have the filter of the emotional journey of the book, we come to feel sympathetic for that character as well.

I won’t say that this is without its flaws. The delivery of the story is original and interesting. It’s an emotional story set upon a vaguely apocalyptic landscape and while I appreciated the more lofty notions of the book I think I would have liked a few dips back down to Earth, every now and again. At times, I felt like the book crumbled a bit under the weight of its own verbiage when what I really wanted was some basic physical descriptions of what was happening. Some aspects of the book, particularly what is happening to the infected was just a bit on the vague side for me. I also found parts of the ending to be a little far-fetched, just in the sense that I had a hard time believing anyone would actually follow through with that plan. There are some important emotional moments that take place in those final pages, I just wish the various elements of the story could have been articulated in my head more clearly.
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Still, what barriers there were in the story for me were minor. For me, they were far exceeded by the positive aspects of the book. This was a journey, one that left me evaluating my feelings and opinions so while it maybe could have been executed better, there was still plenty for me to take hold of. By the nature of its mode of storytelling, this book is not going to speak to everyone. I won’t lie and pretend that I can guarantee that you’ll like it as much as I did. But I do think this is one that’s worth rolling the dice on. I honestly had very little idea of what to expect and what I ended up with was pretty original and fun, with some incredibly moving moments and disturbing scenes. This is a book where, while there were moments when I wasn’t sure what was going on or where things were going, I never lost my interest to find the answers to those questions. It’s books like these that I think I would be more inclined in the years to come to revisit. It’s a totality of reading that is unique, one I am grateful for having had the chance to take a spin on. 

THE MIGRATION BY HELEN MARSHALL 

Creepy and atmospheric, evocative of Stephen King's classic Pet Sematary, The Migration is a story of sisterhood, transformation, and the limitations of love, from a thrilling new voice in Canadian fiction.

​When I was younger I didn't know a thing about death. I thought it meant stillness, a body gone limp. A marionette with its strings cut. Death was like a long vacation a going away. 
Storms and flooding are worsening around the world, and a mysterious immune disorder has begun to afflict the young. Sophie Perella is about to begin her senior year of high school in Toronto when her little sister, Kira, is diagnosed. Their parents' marriage falters under the strain, and Sophie's mother takes the girls to Oxford, England, to live with their Aunt Irene. An Oxford University professor and historical epidemiologist obsessed with relics of the Black Death, Irene works with a centre that specializes in treating people with the illness. She is a friend to Sophie, and offers a window into a strange and ancient history of human plague and recovery. Sophie just wants to understand what s happening now; but as mortality rates climb, and reports emerge of bodily tremors in the deceased, it becomes clear there is nothing normal about this condition and that the dead aren't staying dead. When Kira succumbs, Sophie faces an unimaginable choice: let go of the sister she knows, or take action to embrace something terrifying and new. 
Tender and chilling, unsettling and hopeful, The Migration is a story of a young woman s dawning awareness of mortality and the power of the human heart to thrive in cataclysmic circumstances.

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