Bone Lines is a dual narrative story that follows two women separated by thousands of years yet still connected through common themes which unite all of humanity. Eloise is a geneticist who is desperately eager to uncover the secrets of a 74,000-year-old female skeleton discovered by happy accident on Mount Kenya. The skeleton is given a media-friendly name, Sarah after Barack Obama's Kenyan grandmother and readers are taken back to ancient times when this extraordinary woman was forced into a nomadic existence following the Sumatran super-volcano eruption which left her alone and pregnant. Her story is one of desperate survival as she travels with her infant daughter, barely finding sustenance to support them both in the desolate, devastated lands she must pass through as she searches for a new place to call home. She risks almost constant danger as she must face the triple threat of the cold, hunger and other predators but her humanity is never in any doubt and far from being a primitive hunter, she is shown to be empathetic, loving and fiercely protective of her baby daughter. She may have lived thousands of years ago but it struck me that Sarah is not very different from the women who are still forced to migrate from their homes and withstand terrible hardships in order to protect their children today.
Eloise's struggles are more instantly recognisable to modern readers as she considers the moral, philosophical and religious complexities of her research even when driven by the desire for knowledge in her professional life. She ably contends with office politics, professional rivalries and religious fanaticism but acknowledges her personal affairs are rather less successful. She's perhaps not the easiest woman to understand initially and it took me a little while to feel as much affinity with her as I did with Sarah but as the story progresses I grew to really like her introspective nature and wry sense of humour. Both women are determined and courageous individuals but they are united by loss and regret as much as by what motivates them to keep going. They have lost their families and left behind lovers and though their circumstances are very different, there is a sense of loneliness which haunts them both. Bone Lines is unashamedly scientific with a focus on evolution, genetics and climate change and is written to be entirely plausible yet still accessible for the layperson. This is an intelligent, educational and thought-provoking novel which led me to consider just how medical genetics may shape the future of mankind.
However, for all the theorising, Bones Lines is a beautifully written, even occasionally wryly humorous book which at its heart is about love and how it continues to drive and inspire us. That our genetic material has adapted over time and yet still connects us to humans who walked upon the Earth thousands of years ago is both fascinating and humbling. At a time when our political landscape arguably sees us more divided than ever, I found this to be a rather soothing, thoughtful and necessary reminder that we all far more similar than we are different.