Love, Horror, and Defiance Above Planet Earth
Jeffrey Kluger’s Novel ‘The Holdout’
There’s something that happens to astronauts when they view Earth from space that’s known as the overview effect. Sure, they’ve seen images of the planet taken from space countless times. Yet when they actually see it for themselves, it’s life altering.
“A change comes over them when they’re able to see the Earth from that perspective — when they’re able to see a world without borders, when they’re able to see that the atmosphere is really just this fantastically thin and destructible onion skin that protects us from the killing void of space. They see the Earth as sort of a spacecraft on which all of us are passengers and crew,”
— Jeffrey Kluger during an interview with Hank Garner.
The overview phenomenon is at the beating heart of Kluger’s novel, The Holdout, a suspenseful, thoroughly credible story. While he doesn’t have household-name status, you’ve probably heard of Kluger’s nonfiction book Apollo 13, or the Ron Howard movie of the same name, which was partially based on what Kluger wrote. (You know: the movie starring Tom Hanks.)
Holdout falls into the near-future sci-fi genre and imagines what it would be like for an astronaut to witness a catastrophe in one section of Earth while experiencing that overview effect.
Walli Beckwith, the astronaut, sees an environmental crisis so large and devastating that it can be viewed from space and will impact all life on the planet. It just so happens that Walli’s niece, a young doctor named Sonia, is caught up in the maelstrom on Earth. Problem is, the rulers who could actually do something about the crisis either choose to ignore it, or they are actively exacerbating the situation due to greedy ambition.
DEFIANCE IN SPACE
After an accident damages the International Space Station (ISS), where Walli’s located, she realizes she’s in a unique position to act as a change agent for what’s going on back on Earth. She refuses to evacuate the ISS as a form of protest — an attempt to shake the cages of the politicians and public at large.
That’s deeply troubling and shocking to the two other members of the crew, who evacuate, and to the ground crews in Russia and the U.S.
The story becomes as much about the ripple effects the protest causes on Earth as it is about Walli’s life-or-death challenges as she tries to maintain the crippled ISS. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Sonia goes on an extremely risky mission of her own to save people caught up in the crisis. One of them is an endearing little boy whom she loves deeply.
On the face of it, these two interconnected storylines may seem too contrived. But Kluger manages to lift the story beyond that what-a-coincidence pitfall in a couple of ways.
He introduces secondary characters that are well-rounded and believable, many of whom are either part of the Russian and American space programs or they’re working within the Doctors-Without-Borders-type organization where Sonia works. Walli and Sonia are bound to several of them by deep respect, fond friendships, and (in a couple of cases) the possibility of romance.
FINE-GRAINED DETAILS
The novel is also infused, on nearly every page, with the realities of what astronauts actually encounter in space as well as on Earth. Kluger has studied the Russian and American space programs very deeply, not only for his books but also his work as a longtime editor-at-large for Time magazine.
In Holdout’s acknowledgements, he ticks down some highlights of his extensive research, including visits to NASA in Washington, the mission controls in Houston and Moscow, a cosmonaut training center, and the little airport in Russia where cosmonauts and astronauts are welcomed home. Along the way, he also interviewed several astronauts, among them Nicole Stott, who has spent more than 100 days aboard the ISS. She turned the tables by interviewing Kluger for a Commonwealth Club World Affairs event.
Kluger caught the deep-research bug when he was going to law school — before he figured out that writing was a greater joy.
“Law school really taught me something about exhaustive research,” Kluger said during the Garner interview. “Law school is a lot of very grinding reading and a lot of sometimes turgid writing. And you try to take the turgidity out of it and clarify it and make it not just comprehensible, but motivating, animating.”
Needless to say, there are a lot of sci-fi stories that imagine the high-stakes adventures of space travel in the near future, let alone the distant future. And there are also a ton of books that imagine environmental catastrophes that go far beyond what Earth has experienced to date. In blending the two, Kluger’s story could have been formulaic. But with a gift for drama and suspense, and extremely detailed realism, he provides a fresh and riveting read.