Reviewed by Britta Stromeyer
A Line You Have Traced
by Roisin Dunnett
Feminist Press
April 2025, 320 pages, $17.95, ISBN: 9781558613874
Roisin Dunnett’s timely and poignant speculative fiction novel, A Line You Have Traced, offers a chilling vision of the future: “They’d boiled the oceans, fried the forests, torched and bombed great quantities of land, and most of humanity’s remaining resources were stacked up behind locked gates.” The passage appears in the novel’s chapters introducing Ess, one of the novel’s three protagonists. In Ess’ world, humanity has diminished into a dwindling species that has overtaxed the planet’s resources and upset the balance of nature for good. In a future where drones diagnose humans, parakeets freely soar, and bananas are a rare delicacy, the idea of altering past events and shaping a better future for everyone captivates the reader. Ess, a member of a network preparing for the end of human life on earth, is primed to travel into the past to help save the present, quietly battling the novel’s villain: the dark side of our collective humanity and the ghosts of what might have been.
Against a backdrop of growing social ferment and environmental collapse, A Line You Have Traced follows the lives of three women, Bea, Kay and Ess, in three different eras who find themselves intrigued by a mysterious book. The novel opens with Bea, set in post-World War I London. Bea helps her husband manage their shop as they strive to establish a life in the Jewish East End amid the looming threat of fascists. While struggling to conceive, Bea encounters an angel. She chronicles her visions in her diary which become increasingly meaningful as her story progresses. Simultaneously, she navigates her husband’s burgeoning friendship with Haich, a writer and frequent visitor in their home, whose presence feels disruptive to Bea. Moving chronological in each timeline, the novel oscillates between the women’s stories building mystery and tension around the book. Amid balancing two jobs and navigating her life and identity, contemporary Kay enjoys the freedom of partying in London’s queer underground scene. Her carefree lifestyle is interrupted by regular visits from time travelers. As the narrative advances, Kay’s journey serves as a bridge and philosophical link between the past and future, connecting the lives of Bea, Kay, and Ess both literally and symbolically.
Readers who revel in evocative details will delight in Dunnett’s prose as she interweaves current concerns of human connection, truth, oppression, climate action, and social justice—into three distinct narratives linked by time travel, highlighting the interconnectedness of these issues.
The novel evokes themes reminiscent of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, three epic novels Dunnett appears to be in conversation with. Like Mitchell, each story progresses in chronological order, each interrupted by the other, eventually coming full circle creating a satisfying ending that ties back to the beginning of the novel. Like Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, A Line You Have Traced unfolds like a puzzle, each chapter a new piece snapping into place. The rapture lies in assembling those fragments and discovering their hidden connections. It is a quiet epic, a mystery, a fable, a warning, and a call to action all at once. With finesse, Dunnett connects threads that span across time and seamlessly transition between settings and individuals. Her ability to interweave a rich cast of characters and bridge impossible gaps in logic and chronology feels organic. The mystery of the book serves as the key intrigue that binds the women’s narratives. But at its heart, the novel breathes a question across the ages: “If you were a tourist, […] a time-traveler tourist, […] what would you say when you got to me?”
Following Kay’s narrative, the demarcations between past, present, and future turn increasingly nebulous and for Kay, the past feels just as real as the present: “I became aware of a sensation creeping back toward me: like a gentle palm rubbed against my chest, but something deeper than that, the inside of my head and my throat and my ribs, almost a soreness, a tingling, and alongside it all the simmer of adrenaline as something in my allocation of time and space eroded, gained transparency. The sensation was familiar, and as I read, I cast around for it in my memory.” For Ess memory rises from the ashes, as she recalls another fire from her childhood. She was twelve, and fires were common then, just as they are now. Clutching her little sister’s hand as they fled their burning home, she felt full weight of responsibility for their future. Like Emily St. John’s Station Eleven, Dunnett alludes to the blurred lines between art and reality, fantasy and facts, time and memory. A feeling of unreality is reflected in Bea’s angel sightings and Kay’s part-time job in an art gallery where she sits “with the art and direct[s] people to the toilets. The rest of the time [she] just sort of [swans] about, worrying vaguely about money and when and how the world was going to end.” Like St. John, Dunnett uses art and storytelling to offer comfort and guidance to her characters, but these same narratives also have the power to distort their understanding of the world. Ultimately, they serve to connect her characters across vast stretches of time.
While Dunnett’s novel probes a world plagued by environmental degradation and societal unrest, her characters find themselves fighting for resilience and resistance in face of adversity. The recurring image of the angel in Bea’s story is not the only spiritual reference that fuels hope. The presence of wild green parakeets in the future is a recurring image in Ess’ narrative. The parakeets symbolize freedom and aspiration, perhaps alluding to shed burdens and embrace joy, their green color evoking growth and healing, even in the darkest times.
The novel’s furling and unfurling of narratives stretches the reader’s understanding of time. As one character observes, “When we talk about time, we should really talk about history…” reminding the reader that “We are trying to avert catastrophe. To change the future. […] Ecosystem: fucked. Resource management: nonexistent. Human and nonhuman rights: thing of the past. The only difference between us is that I’ve known, nearly all my life, I’ve known—there’s a solution. We can fix what we have done. We can undo the mistakes our ancestors made.” The novel ultimately challenges the reader to consider whether humanity can collectively rectify its environmental and societal wrongs, or will the novel’s character Ess have the last word, and will this be “the final human chapter” and earth “breathe a sigh of relief when we’re gone”?
About the reviewer: Britta Stromeyer is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing appears in Flash Fiction Magazine, Bending Genres Journal, Necessary Fiction, On The Seawall, OCWW’s About Write, Marin Independent Journal and other publications. Britta holds an MFA from Dominican University, CA, an M.A. from American University, and a Certificate in Novel Writing from Stanford University.