Time travel is an obvious source of plot material for authors, but it is also inherently problematic – making it plausible is always the challenge. Over the years authors have adopted a range of different approaches to making it believable. None have ever really cracked the central practical problems associated with the idea, but Matt Haig comes close in this novel, mainly by redefining what we mean by time travel. His central character, Tom Hazard, has a rare genetic condition which causes him to age extremely slowly.

I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.

For every ten to fifteen years of his life his body ages approximately one year of everyone else’s. And this is his story. At the time we are introduced to him he is around 400 years old. Much of the novel is spent revisiting Tom’s memories of his earlier lives, from medieval England to 1920’s Paris. The gift of long-life has not been without its problems. His mother is drowned as a witch because of his eternal youthfulness, and he has to separate from his Elizabethan wife and daughter to prevent something similar happening to them. He is forced to change identity every eight years, can never put down roots, learn a profession, build a family, or settle down. And of course the things he can’t have become the things he wants.

In the present Tom works as a teacher, teaching history from first-hand experience. He becomes attracted to a colleague who comes close to working out his secret, but Tom knows that if he allows that to happen he would be putting her in danger. Because Tom has reluctantly joined a group of ‘albas’ – albatrosses, people with the same long-life gene as Tom – determined to protect their secret from big-tech or anyone who would want to analyse their genes for the secret of near eternal life. This group takes a unequivocal approach to secrecy – anyone who finds out about the albas is murdered.

The central concept of this novel is original and interesting. But the novel never really grabbed me. The main character, Tom, doesn’t realise what an amazing gift he has, and to be honest spends a lot of time complaining. His focus is relentlessly on how difficult long-life is amongst normal people, rather than “Wow, I met Shakespeare!”. The resolution of the plot in which he has to choose between enforcing the secrecy code of the albas or embracing the possibility of love is sentimental and unconvincing.

Sorry – I hate reviewing books that I feel underwhelmed by. I’d rather review a book I full-on hate rather than something that is not that bad. But this was just OK. The author can clearly write, and come up with great ideas, so I genuinely hope he finds the right combination one day.