10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
Author: Elif Shafak
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Our brains stay active for ten minutes after our heart stops beating. For Leila, each minute brings with it a new memory: growing up with her father and his wives in a grand old house in a quiet Turkish town; watching the women gossip and wax their legs while the men went to mosque; sneaking cigarettes and Western magazines on her way home from school; running away to Istanbul to escape an unwelcome marriage; falling in love with a student who seeks shelter from a riot in the brothel where she works. Most importantly, each memory reminds Leila of the five friends she met along the way — friends who are now desperately trying to find her …
TL;DR Review
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World is a beautiful novel. It shows us the most important moments of a murdered woman’s life, told through flashes of memory, in the minutes before her brain function stops.
For you if: You like literary historical fiction and appreciate a creative narrative structure.
Full Review
“As far as she was concerned, the apocalypse was not the worst thing that could happen. The possibility of an immediate and wholesale decimation of civilization was not half as frightening as the simple realization that our individual passing had no impact on the order of things, and life would go on just the same with or without us. Now that, she had always thought, was terrifying.”
Shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World is beautiful and striking, with a narrative structure that flows forward like a river; you can predict its shape by looking at the map, but not the beauty that will come along the way.
The novel is about Leila, a sex worker from Istanbul, who has just been murdered. Although her heart has stopped beating, her brain continues on, cycling through memory for 10 minutes and 38 seconds. Each passing minute brings us into a new memory, shaping her past — family, trauma, friendship, love. Along the way, we also meet her five closest friends. After the time is up and Laila’s mind goes finally quiet, the narrative shifts, and we see her friends mourning her as they attempt to lay her to rest in the way she deserves.
It wasn’t perfect, in my opinion, mostly because I thought the part of the book following her death was too long. I loved the minute-by-minute structure of the story, her flashbacks, and I expected the narration featuring her friends to feel like a coda. But instead, it sort of felt like part of another book altogether. It was at least a third of the story, and while I loved these characters when I saw them through Leila’s eyes, I didn’t feel like I knew them well enough to stay quite as hooked that long without her. But still, the very ending was especially beautiful, and I still really liked the book overall.
For most of the book, I found myself drawn into the story and subtly held, not even tempted to pick up my phone for a few minutes of scrolling between chapters. The writing throughout is quietly mournful. It’s capable of being read quickly without losing meaning, straightforward in the truth that it provides and resonant without being overly embellished.
We are built of memories, made of those who love us. What other beauty could there be?
Trigger Warnings
Miscarriage, pregnancy, birth
Pedophilia, childhood sexual assault/rape
Death of a child/sibling
Mental illness
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