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Book Review
Orbital: Reflections on a Fragile Earth
Samantha Harvey’s snapshot of climate change
Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, a Booker Prize-winning novel, feels like a mirror held up to my life right now, though its setting couldn’t be further from the ashes of Pacific Palisades.
Orbital is a story about Earth’s beauty and fragility, seen through the eyes of six people aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Over 16 orbits — each chapter a 90-minute revolution around the planet — the novel captures their lives as they navigate personal grief, the vastness of space, and the looming shadow of climate change.
It’s a story that feels achingly relevant to me, sitting here in the aftermath of losing my home to wildfires. I grapple with my own grief and the fragility of the world around me. Looking at Earth through the eyes of Harvey’s space crew is a welcoming reprieve.
The ISS is home to four astronauts and two Russian cosmonauts, each carrying their own burdens and stories. Chie, the Japanese astronaut, mourns her mother’s recent death, unable to return to Earth for the funeral. Shaun, the American astronaut, reflects on a postcard of Velázquez’s Las Meninas, a gift from his wife that stirs memories of their early love and life together.
