place and time, the novel is in many ways a contemporary story about how the past seeps into the present. It opens in 2018 with Simon, who is learning the real estate game in the town of Girdwood, Alaska. Simon is preoccupied with a knee injury sustained in a car accident. He is worried about his wife, Lacy, who teaches cello in her home music studio. He does his best to be a stepdad to Cedar, Lacy’s son. They listen to a Spotify playlist that reminds Simon of his childhood, when he lived in Brisbane. Earls writes the texture of Simon’s life with such an eye for detail and private anxiety that, even though we don’t know what shape this narrative will take, we’re certainly along for the ride.
Simon meets Ellen, an elderly client, and it is here that the true nature of Empires is revealed. After the death of her husband, Ellen is selling the house. They had a business selling curios of the past – framed banknotes, pages from historically significant printing presses], and the like. Ellen is obsessed with the materialities of history. She shows Simon a small lead figurine of a soldier. “Napoleon. Apparently.” – “That’s the family story, at least.” The almost unending power of these tiny pieces of the past – and the stories that animate these histories – is at the core of Empires.
Part two moves us back in time, to London in 1978. Punk is just kicking off, the war is a not-too-distant memory, and the reality of what it means to be British or not – and to fit into a society stratified by class lines – is very much alive. Michael, a teenager just arrived from Brisbane with his younger brother, mother and father, is struggling to find his place. He forms a bond with his neighbours, George. A man of the theatre, George has a profound impact on Michael, showing him the kind of generous welcome that he and his family didn’t realize they needed. The soldier makes another appearance. The mystery surrounding it is added to by George: “There was a story, but it was lost. Maybe that was how curiosities worked. They weren’t made of gold or made for kings or emperors, so perhaps they slipped free of their stories more easily.” These stories about the past have a subtle power.
The third section is set in…
