Short guest post from Mary Pauline Lowry, author of The Earthquake Machine

I had read and reviewed Mary Lowry's awesome book, The Earthquake Machine recently (click on the link for my review), and she graciously agreed to give me a guest post.  I'm also hoping to post an interview with her soon.

First I want to thank Jo for hosting me here at Fluidity of Time. It’s exciting to be guest posting here because I love the slightly surreal aesthetic of the blog, Jo’s insightful reviews and the way she includes the first sentences of every novel she reviews.

The blog’s name has inspired me to write about the way time is addressed in my novel The Earthquake Machine. In the novel, which mixes elements of realism and the fantastical, 14 year old Rhonda runs away while on a river rafting trip in Big Bend National Park. She swims across the Rio Grande River to Mexico, leaving behind her country, language, friends and family to make her way across a strange land in search of her family’s yardman Jésus.

With the help of a peyote-addled bartender on the Mexican side of the border, Rhonda transforms her appearance so that she can “pass” as a Mexican boy named Angel; and she sets off across the desert on a burro named Pablo. Her watch stops and Rhonda leaves it behind, realizing it is useless anyway because out in the desert time is measured by the sun moving across the sky and not by hands on a watch.

And the longer Rhonda is in Mexico, the more she realizes that in that country time is perceived very differently than in the United States. People don’t have a rush-rush American attitude. And things unfold at a very different pace.

During her journey, Rhonda/Angel learns that time is indeed fluid and is one of the many things that changes when one crosses the border into Mexico.

How cool!!!  Thank you, Mary!!!   For more information about this great book, please visit the author's website.