Books: How to Stop Time By Matt Haig (2018)

“Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries (439 to be exact). Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life. So Tom moves back to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher--the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

I’m unsure how this novel became described as a “love story across the ages.” Because this is not like The Time Travelers Wife, which had a love story, but How to Stop Time has no real time travel whatsoever (though the book time-jumps between chapters –more on that later), and Tom’s wife Rose is long dead. And author Matt Haig’s character spends a massive amount of time wallowing in self-pity over having been alive so long. There is also a bit of conflict with a group called the Ablatross Society, which is run by an abla named Hendrich – a man so obviously manipulative, it makes Tom look like an idiot for not catching on faster.  But really, Tom’s hand-wringing comes tedious, as he whines about how everything changes, but really doesn’t. This becomes a mantra throughout the book, as the author tries to come up with more and more clichéd ways of saying this.

The book has short chapters, and as mentioned, time-jumps between modern London and days of yesteryear. While this may sound like a great idea, these jumps actually slows down the narrative –and most seem almost pointless. Tom also becomes a sort of a Forrest Gump of Time as he interacts with historical figures as Shakespeare, Will Kemp, James Cook, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Omai (who was, according to Wikipedia, was a young Ra’iatean man who became the second Pacific Islander to visit Europe). The name dropping and historical-events dropping becomes tedious after awhile.

Long before the How To Stop Time comes to an end, however, you understand the coda that Matt Haig is foisting upon his readers:  don’t be afraid of happiness and love. So yeah, I did not love this book, but I can’t say it’s awful either. It’s a collection of good ideas, with a depressing douche as a lead. Sort of like all the roles actor Dylan McDermott plays.