Mini-review: Dreams Before the Start of Time

Multigenerational family saga serves as a vehicle for examining the societal and ethical implications of current and future fertility treatments. As in her previous work, Anne gives her characters recognisable and everyday hopes, dreams, dilemmas and anxieties as well as a plausible world to inhabit. What is different is the width of the palette, it feels quite epic at times - historically, geographically and the cast of characters who people it.  Inevitably, some vignettes and characters are more appealing than others - but most felt like they’d captured an essential  truth of the human experience.