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    The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel
    The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel
    The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel
    Audiobook16 hours

    The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel

    Written by Justin Go

    Narrated by Steve West

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    An impossible quest. An epic love story. A mesmerizing debut.

    In 1924, the English mountaineer Ashley Walsingham dies attempting to summit Mount Everest, leaving his fortune to his long-lost lover, Imogen Soames-Andersson—whom he has not seen in seven years. Ashley’s attorneys search in vain for Imogen, but the estate remains unclaimed.

    Nearly eighty years later, new information leads the same law firm to Tristan Campbell, a young American who could be the estate’s rightful heir. If Tristan can prove he is Imogen’s descendant, the inheritance will be his. But with only weeks before Ashley’s trust expires, Tristan must hurry to find the evidence he needs.

    From London WWI archives to the battlefields in France to the fjords of Iceland, Tristan races to piece together the story behind the unclaimed riches: a reckless love affair pursued only days before Ashley’s deployment to the Western Front of the Great War; a desperate trench battle fought by soldiers whose hope is survival rather than victory; an expedition to the uncharted heights of the world’s tallest mountain. Following a trail of evidence that stretches to the far edge of Europe, Tristan becomes consumed by Ashley and Imogen’s story. But as he draws close to the truth, Tristan realizes he may be seeking something more than an unclaimed fortune.

    The Steady Running of the Hour announces the arrival of a stunningly talented author. Justin Go’s “debut is ambitious in many ways…it depicts a love that transcends time and disdains convention; and it fluidly moves between past and present” (Publishers Weekly).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateApr 15, 2014
    ISBN9781442368255
    Author

    Justin Go

    Justin Go attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated with a BA in history and art history. He also holds an MA in English from University College London. He has lived in Tokyo, Paris, London, New York City, and Berlin. 

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    Reviews for The Steady Running of the Hour

    3/5

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    • 3/5
      I wanted to rate this higher. The first half of this book is simply electrifying. I was entranced from page one. In its second half, sadly the book starts to fizzle out, and ends on a rather ho-hum note. This was a very ambitious project for a first novel, what with the multiple historical storylines and all, and I'm not sure that author had full control. For instance, without giving anything away, there was one event that happened, and later on another character said it had never happened. So either one guy was hallucinating or the other guy purposely denied that it happened for some reason. It never comes up again. Maybe I missed something, I dunno. Also, the continual plot contrivances really strained credibility.

      Mr. Go has more talent than most. This book, although flawed, makes that abundantly clear. His prose is terrific. Although this debut ultimately failed to live up to its promise, I fully intend to read Go's next effort, which he is presently working on according to the biographical blurb. This is a young author to keep an eye on.
    • 3/5
      I was interested in this novel because the story partly involves the 1924 British expedition to Mount Everest and some of the characters are clearly based on figures involved in that expedition (which I find endlessly fascinating). Furthermore, this book got off to a great start, with a nearly broke college student receiving notice that he might be in line to inherit a vast fortune (every broke college student's dream!), if only he can prove a family relationship that was covered up decades before. And then...well, the main character Tristan spends a bunch of time and his few remaining funds wandering around Europe, going from Sweden to France to Germany to Iceland, searching for clues about his grandparents. Pieces of it are fascinating, other parts make me concerned about the historical research skills taught to this college student, and yet others made me frustrated with Tristan as a character. An interesting read and definitely one that different people would see differently, but it's hard for me to give it a good recommendation.
    • 3/5
      In 1916, a few days before going to war, Ashley Walsingham falls in love with Imogen Soames-Andersson. In 1996 San Francisco, Tristan Campbell learns that when Ashley Walsingham died during the 1924 Mount Everest expedition, he left his money to Imogen Soames-Andersson, who never claimed it. If Tristan can prove he is a direct descendant of Imogene, he will gain the fortune. The catch: Tristan has only a few months to prove his connection or the money will be given to charity.The story switches between Tristan's investigation and Ashley and Imogen's love story. Tristan's grandmother, the daughter of Imogen's sister, was born in rural Sweden, where Imogen and her sister spent the winter. Timing suggests that the baby could have been Imogen and Ashley's out-of-wedlock child. The days before Ashley leaves for war are the stuff of love's poetry. Go makes you believe their love is unique in all history. Imogen cannot understand why Ashley chooses the war over staying with her. They write beautiful letters to one another, but when Ashley almost dies, and again refuses to run away with her, Imogen breaks it off. Or does she? Ashley and Imogen's love story is breath-taking, the characters intense and perfectly flawed. The war is grimy and terrifying, the Everest expedition cold and fascinating. Tristan's frantic ancestry search takes him all over Europe where he finds clue after clue, getting so close to discovery. I read the last 200 pages without breathing. The ending left me utterly disappointed.
    • 2/5
      The ending of this book is SO BAD it completely overshadows the other 80–90% which is actually pretty good. Admittedly, the character development left a lot to be desired… but I’m willing to put up with that for a good historical mystery. Which this (mostly) was. It reminded me a bit of Possession by A.S. Byatt. (A novel I love and can’t recommend highly enough)

      Please don’t read the rest of this if you don’t want spoilers. Tristan Campbell, a recent college history(?) graduate, has the McGuffin of a ridiculously large inheritance dangled in front of him, if he can find proof that his grandmother was the love child of star-crossed WWI lovers Imogene and Ashley. Tristan goes to London, Paris, Germany, Sweden, and finally Iceland in pursuit of the truth. He digs through libraries and archives, uses all of his savings, he sleeps outside, he goes without food, he hitchhikes, he steals a boat, ransacks an old house, begs a German postal worker…. the list is endless. And then he finally… FINALLY seems to have reached the answer and the end of the road, opens the door…. AND THE BOOK ENDS.

      Seriously.
    • 2/5
      Got to the end and was very disappointed. A lot of build up for nothing. This is my book club book so I am very curious to see how the discussion goes and what other readers got out of the book. It did not do much for me. A long, long, story with no real ending or much meaning (for me).
    • 2/5
      Tristan Campbell, a recent college graduate, is notified by secretive London solicitors, that he may be heir to a huge fortune. All he has to do is prove that he is the great-grandson of Ashley Walsingham, a World War I officer and mountaineer, and Imogen Soames-Andersson, a wealthy Bohemian. And he has less than two months to prove this biological connection. He sets off across Europe tracing the footsteps of the two people who may be his ancestors. The chapters alternate between past and present. In the present, the reader follows Tristan in his backpacking across Europe. In the past, we have the romance between Imogen and Ashley and the latter’s experiences in World War I and in an expedition climbing Everest. There are certainly parallels between the two stories: Ashley and Tristan are both obsessed – Ashley with climbing the world’s tallest mountain and Tristan with uncovering the truth. The two also have to choose between love and what they perceive to be their duty, a choice forced on them by the women in their lives.It is these women who arouse my ire with the author. They are anything but fully developed realistic characters. Both Imogen and Mireille, Tristan’s love interest, are vague in their motivations and selfish and manipulative. Tristan meets Mireille in France and they strike up a platonic friendship, though with some intimations of further possibilities, and she pleads with him to abandon his quest. Since their relationship is not developed into some great love affair, her pleas come across as those of an overwrought harpy. Imogen’s behaviour is also unconvincing; one can understand her fear that Ashley will be killed in the war, but when he survives, her treatment of him seems just bizarre.Another issue with the novel is that there are just too many improbabilities. Just as Tristan reaches a dead end, he encounters someone who, despite the locale, speaks perfect English and is able to provide another vital clue. These chance meetings even allow him to find documents. Tristan acknowledges the unlikelihood of his finds: “Surely it is beyond all notions of luck to have found those letters.” Later, he adds, “It was impossible. It required the gathering of whole constellations, a harvest of countless stars funneled into a single cup and rolled out, a pair of sixes, a million times in perfect succession.” But we are to believe that “If it seemed improbable, maybe that was only [our] own narrowness of vision”?!And then there’s the ending or lack thereof. The author gives so much detail about unimportant events, but then abandons the book. His cutting away from the locked room in remotest Iceland is inexcusable. I can certainly guess as to what happened, but to take a reader on a long and detailed search only to leave him/her adrift at the end reeks of manipulation.This book tries to be a love story, a mystery, and an adventure quest. Unfortunately, it is not successful as any of these. The romances do not come across as believable. The secrecy around the mysterious will is also questionable. And the pace for an adventure quest is just too slow. I regret the steady running of the hours wasted on reading this novel.
    • 3/5
      Part adventure/thriller, part romance, and part "modern literature," *The Steady Running of the Hour* pulled me in early. Tristan Campbell learns that he has eight weeks to prove that he is the direct descendant of Ashley Walsingham, a British mountaineer who perished on Mount Everest in 1924. Such proof will result in a tremendous inheritance (which transfers to various charitable organizations at the end of said eight weeks). Tristan's persistent and wild pursuit of unlikely clues and crazy hunches lead him around Europe where he begins to unravel the story of Ashley and his brief, passionate love affair with Imogen Soames-Andersson, which may have resulted in a secret "illegitimate" child, possibly Tristan's great grandmother (or grandmother... whatever). I enjoyed the adventure aspect of this novel; Mr. Go's writing is good enough that I was willing, even eager to suspend disbelief and go along for an enjoyable ride. But Justin Go tries to do too much. When the improbable clues begin to serve as towering (and overdone) metaphors and the narrative descends into speculation on "the trivial and the tragic" nature of any but fated love, I grew impatient. The ending was simply inane. My unsought advice to Justin Go is to stick with writing adventure stories and leave the metaphors, allusions, and philosophical musings to writers with a more subtle hand.
    • 4/5
      Parts historical, parts travelogue, we readers are swept up in Tristan Campbell's quest - to find evidence that his great grandmother is indeed Imogen Soames-Andersson, making him sole heir to a mysterious fortune. This book immerses us first in Tristan's present day world, and then the early 1900s. This narrative device of providing alternate chapters between the lives of Ashley Walsingham and Imogen Soames-Andersson and that of Tristan, most recently of California, is so finely balanced, we are halfway through the book before we realize how deeply the author has entwined Tristan's waking life with that of two people he never knew, who may or may not be some relation to him. As the lawyers explain, he may be heir to Walsingham's fortune but he must locate and bring to the firm more solid evidence that he actually is descended from Imogen, not her sister Eleanor, who he's always been told was his great grandmother. And all his exhaustive searches -libraries, archives, old museums -even to the places he either knew or suspected where Imogen lived - serve to whet his appetite, not for the fortune, but to somehow find this long lost Imogen himself. Most importantly, although he doesn't seem to realize it at first, he meets Mireille, a young, newly divorced French woman on his last night in Paris. She becomes an integral part of his search, providing a place to stay and help in searching while in the countryside around the old WWI battlefields of northern France. Gradually, she becomes much more and we realize that perhaps Tristan's destiny is to be on this convoluted journey, not just to locate legal proof of his heritage, but to delve into a long lost love,the grand passion of Ashley and Imogen, and to find love himself. The details of the 1916-1920s parts of the book I found to be exceptional;Go's style reminds me a bit of Ian McEwan- sparkling prose with sparse use of emotional language, very British. The weakest part was the ending, which I found to be a bit of a let down....with no explanation given of the very old lady he finally meets in a remote village of Iceland (we are expected to surmise who she is). But the rest of the book surely makes up for it - a grand historical romance in the best tradition with some wonderful bits about travel, searching for one's ancestoral past, and even Ashley's incredible mountain climbing experiences. I was hooked, from beginning to end
    • 4/5
      So good! If you liked Possession by A.S. Byatt, you will like this book. The book jumps between a modern day treasure hunt and the early 20th Century / WWI. Moving and frustrating at the same time. I didn't like the ending, but that's because I despise inconclusive endings.
    • 2/5
      I found this an unsatisfying book. I kept reading till the end because I wanted to see how it would all work out but the ending left me with many unanswered questions. I don't know if I missed things along the way but I just didnt like how it ended so quickly. The story line sounded really interesting too. I hoped for much more.
    • 2/5
      Very unsatisfying ending
    • 3/5
      I was happy to read an ARC of The Steady Running of the Hour provided by the publisher. I liked the different locales and both of the story lines. After having made a substantial investment of time and interest in the book, I was very disappointed with the ending.I think Go did a good job with the main male characters. He made me feel that I understood what made the two men tick, and I particularly appreciated that he brought history alive with Ashley's war experiences and mountain climbing. I enjoyed being immersed in the time period. I also thought that I could relate to Tristan's situation, but there were too many coincidences to be believable, and he had too many lucky breaks.Although I understood that Imogen was an unconventional woman for her time, I would have liked to know much more about what she did in the intervening years. I couldn't relate to her decisions throughout the book.I also had difficulty warming up to Mireille and couldn't understand the relationship between her and Tristan. I admired Tristan for ignoring her wishes and pursuing his quest, but I found myself hoping he'd meet someone else and not return to her. I kept expecting her to betray Tristan in some way.I think the author has potential, but he has a lot to learn about developing his female characters. I also think he could have scaled back on some of the excessive descriptions so that he would have been able to fill in more gaps in the main story.
    • 4/5
      Justin Go has written a novel in a style reminiscent of certain British writers who use an intelligent, reserved, and persistent narrator to give accurate and insightful observations of themselves other characters. This style allows the authors to focus on the objective but detached views of the narrators that are guided by their own intuitive sense of purpose and direction. The greatest example of this is Anthony Powell's Nicholas Jenkins in Complete Set: A Dance to the Music of Time: 1st Movement, 2nd Movement, 3rd Movement, 4th Movement, a wonderful multi-volume novel that follows the narrator in Great Britain from boyhood to middle age in the 20th Century. Readers come to know and love Nick because of his genuine interest in other characters, extensive education, successful career as a novelist, risky love affairs and enduring marriage, and his call to duty as an officer in WWII.In Mr. Go's novel, Tristan Campbell's reserved personality, careful observations, persistent actions, and underlying introspection are revealed when he responds to a call from a solicitor in the London firm of Twining and Hooper. He is told that he may be in line for a large inheritance, part of an irrevocable trust that is about to lapse at the end of its 80 year term. Tristan has just graduated from college in the U. S. with no immediate plans in mind for beginning an occupation. He decides to accept an invitation by the solicitors to travel to London for an explanation of his role in the settling of the account that involved his deceased grandmother.In London Tristan learns that a great amount of money and extensive private and business property may be his to claim because he is the sole heir of his grandmother's estate. The law firm's records reveal that Ashley Walsingham bequeathed enormous wealth to his lover Imogen Soames-Andersson who disappeared in the 1920's without claiming the assets. The British solicitors believe that Imogen was pregnant with Tristan's grandmother, but direct proof is needed. Pressure is added by "the steady running of the hour" because of the imminent suspension date for finding supporting evidence. For Tristan money and property are important, but he persists in his extensive search of minimal records against all odds because he is intrigued by the story of the lives and the love affair of Ashley and Imogen. He sets out to find the evidence that will earn him his inheritance, and, more importantly, will tell the real story of the two lovers now lost in time.Tristan travels Europe chasing down bits of information about Ashley (war hero and mountain climber) and Imogen (pampered daughter from an economically comfortable family). In his research travels, a chance encounter in a Paris bar leads Tristan to the beginning of his own love affair with a young French woman Mireille. This is similar to the start of Ashley and Imogen's affair. The similarities between the love affairs of two couples increases as Tristan gathers information about his inheritance. He and Mireille face a dilemma similar to that of Ashley and Imogen. Should they perform their duty with honor and sacrifice in the steady running of the hour? Or will they seek the wildest beauty in the world by slipping time risking the "richlier" grief of Ashley and Imogen? Mr. Powell's Nicholas Jenkins stayed true to his course throughout life in the steady running of the hour. Read Mr. Go's novel to discover Tristan's resolution of a dilemma perhaps all thoughtful people must confront.Although Justin Go does not reach the literary heights of Anthony Powell, his lengthy novel is enjoyable and I recommend it to readers as a good first novel by a talented writer.
    • 4/5
      It is impossible to live without danger, Ashley explains. The danger is always there, the hazard of wasted lives, of decades bent over a desk, of squalid and lonely deaths in hospital beds. Fools turned their faces away from danger and pretended at immunity, but others went to the fountainhead of life. Pg. 81A single will and testament connects two lives across the span of decades. A WWI veteran who perishes on an expedition of Mount Everest leaves behind his entire estate to a missing woman. Nearly eighty years later, an American boy, a newly graduated university student is given the opportunity of a lifetime - a chance to inherit this vast and unclaimed fortune, but he must prove that he is the legitimate heir and time is running out. Ashley and Tristan are two men born in different times, living vastly different lives and yet their stories are connected by time. Time is a merciless task master. One is in search of the other, working against time, searching through time, and in the end, surrendering to the passing of time. Justin Go's debut novel is indeed as ambitious as it has been described. Spanning decades and travelling multiple countries, you are taken on a journey to solve the mystery of one man's parentage and legacy. The alternate narratives between Ashley and Tristan takes you back and forth through time as the hunt for the truth of the past is steadily revealed. It is a rare novel where I didn't particularly connect with any of the characters nor did I find any one of them that likeable and yet the overall thrust of the story was enough to keep me wanting to come back for more. At times, it felt like I was kept at a distance, allowed to only observe as the main characters searched for answers, for themselves, and for resolutions, without ever fully revealing who they were and yet in this case, I was perfectly content to be a bystander, watching it all unfold. The Steady Running of the Hour is not what you would describe as action-packed, although there were some outrageous turn of events, but rather an introspective and reflective story that has occasional bursts of brilliant writing, leaving a curious lingering peace at the end of it all.
    • 3/5
      Nicola Smith The Steady Running of the Hour is a dual timeframe novel. In the current day story Tristan recieves a letter at his home in California informing him that he might just be the heir to an 80 year old fortune that has never been collected, but he needs to prove it by finding out if his grandparents are indeed Ashley Walsingham and Imogen Soames-Andersson. This leads Tristan to London, Paris, Berlin and Iceland on his quest to discover his heritage and claim the fortune.The other strand of the novel is the love story of Ashley and Imogen. This takes the reader to the trenches of WWI and to Mount Everest. I thought the WWI sections were particularly well-written and Go did not stint on detail, however horrendous. I liked this book and Tristan's investigations drew me into the story, but it was all quite implausible somehow, and that spoiled it a little for me. I didn't find any of the characters particularly interesting either and cared little for them. Overall though, this is a reasonably good debut novel and one which will appeal to those who like dual timeframe stories, or reading about WWI and the attempts to conquer Everest.Thank you to the publishers for allowing me to review this book through Netgalley.
    • 4/5
      Twenty-three year old Tristan Campbell receives a letter by special courier at his California apartment from a London solicitor. It urges him to contact the lawyer at once on a matter of great urgency. After calling them, Tristan learns that he may be the beneficiary of a secret trust created by Ashley Walsingham, who died on an expedition to Mt. Everest in 1924, leaving a sizable trust (the amount not specified) to his missing lover, Imogene Soames-Andersson, or her direct descendants. If such beneficiary is not found within 80 years of Ashley's death, the assets are to be distributed among several charities. The lawyers believe Tristan to be that beneficiary, but he must find proof that he is the great grandson of Imogene, rather that Imogene's married sister Eleanor as the family has always believed. This sets Tristan on a search across Northern Europe for the elusive proof that must be located before the trust expires in just two months time. This is a beautifully written debut novel. The author artfully leads the reader to become more interested in what happened to Imogene than the actual distribution of the trust, as does Tristan. Thank you to Simon and Schuster for allowing me the opportunity to read this advance reader's copy. This is a story so well-told that it kept me reading way past my bedtime, and I highly recommend it when it is released in April 2014!