Bridge is a university drop-out working at a bookstore. When her mother, Jo, passes away from cancer, she and her faithful, helpful and resourceful friend Dom go to her mother’s house to sort through her effects and to maybe start processing some of the trauma of seeing her mother in a delusional state before her death, not recognizing her own daughter, only to find that somebody has broken into the house, seemingly in search of something valuable, but nothing appears to be missing.
Cleaning out the fridge, they discover a piece of a dreamworm in the house. A mythical piece of organic material that Bridge’s mother claimed had the power to transport her (and young Bridge) into parallel universes. Bridge vaguely remembers dreamworm sessions from when she was young - showing up in a different location all of a sudden and then being transported back into her own reality - but she was never sure if these were real experiences or dreamlike memories her mother’s stories imprinted on her.
When Bridge swallows a piece of Dreamworm (fun fact: did you know that Lemur’s gently bite millipedes to get high on their secretions?) she is indeed transported into another reality. And importantly, into another version of herself. At this, she begins to suspect that her mother (or another version of her) might still be out there in some parallel universe and goes on a frantic search across alternative realities, supported by Dom (who tries to be a voice of reason in this endeavour) and assisted by a young man who appears to have helped her mother on her dreamworm trips.
Bridge is, however, not the only one searching for her mother, and her journeys attract the attention of a group of hunters, trying to find and kill people jumping across realities - for a good reason, as we will learn as we unpack the mystery of the dreamworm. Unlike Bridge, these hunters have the unfair advantage of being connected across realities - a multi-universal hivemind.
In addition to Bridge jumping across worlds, the story also jumps: We follow Bridge, we are Dom, we become the hivemind that is the hunter, and we follow the trials and tribulations of Jo’s life as an outcast and then later as a mother and scientist through a collection of diary entries. What might sound confusing actually comes together as a fast-paced exploration of multiple versions of Bridge and their lives.
Multiverse stories can take many forms: In Fringe (the TV series), anything going into a parallel universe, must have something similar coming out of that universe to keep them in balance, but the way these universes are connected still allows Walter Bishop to kidnap his son from a parallel world after his own son died in our world (a theme that occurs again in “Professor Everywhere” by Nicolas Binge (author of “Ascension”). In M.R. Carey’s Pandominion, there seems to be hardly any restriction on jumping around between worlds and we encounter a motley crew of mercenaries brought together from multiple versions of earth. In Micaiah Johnson’s The Space between Worlds, you can travel to other worlds only if your alternate self has already died in that world.
Leuren Beukes adds another interesting twist to jumping across universes: If you go from World A to World B, you don’t take your body along. Instead you end up in the body of your alternate self (and if that person is dead, you will fail to jump and will suffer from what feels like a massive hangover). But when you jump, your other self is forced to jump as well and ends up in your body in your world. Interestingly, this also means that parallel worlds are necessarily relatively similar to the original version exposing not fundamentally different societies but changes resulting much more from different individual decisions.
Beukes’ approach to alternate worlds brings its own set of complications of course, but more importantly, its own set of ethical dilemmas. There is not only the question of whether it is ok to interfere in another world. There is also the question of whether it is ok to force your other self to jump (and how you deal with that other person, who all of a sudden finds herself in a different world). Bridges and Dom handle that situation very pragmatically - but Leuren Beukes could have gone further exploring what happens to people suddenly force to leave their own reality (even if only for a short time) without any influence, support or explanation.
In “Bridge”, South African author Lauren Beukes has written a gripping story, bringing together a hunt across worlds with the exploration of Bridge’s past, her relationship with her mother, and the different paths her life could have (has?) taken in different circumstances. In Afterland (2020), Beukes previously described a world where most men have fallen victim to a pandemic and a mother is on the run with her surviving boy. True to style, men don’t really play a role in Bridge - they can help operating the jump and they might show up as an abusive boyfriend in an alternate world. This story, however, works just as well without men being in the picture.
Futureboy approves - a highly entertaining read and a worthy addition the the multiverse genre.