The Bone Clocks

The Bone Clocks (2014) is a work of literary fantasy and the sixth novel by English author David Mitchell. It was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, and also received the 2015 World Fantasy Award.

Spanning nearly 60 years and featuring five different narrators, The Bone Clocks follows Holly Sykes, a young woman from Kent, England, who becomes embroiled in a secret war between two groups of immortal beings called the Horologists and the Anchorites. One of these is the deathless Horologist Marinus, a secondary character from Mitchell’s 2010 novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Holly encounters Marinus and three other people throughout her life; these acquaintances describe glimpses into the hidden war in which Holly plays a small but vital role. The novel explores themes of Individuals’ Actions in the Grand Scheme of History, Morality in a Secular World, and Literature’s Role in Preserving Memory.

This study guide refers to the Random House trade paperback edition of the novel, published in 2015.

Content Warning: The source material for this guide includes portrayals of racist and anti-gay behavior, and offensive behavior against unhoused and elderly people. It also depicts a sexual relationship between an adult and a minor, addiction, suicide, and mental illness stereotypes.

Plot Summary

The Bone Clocks takes place over 59 years, beginning in 1984 and ending in 2043. Each of the novel’s six sections is told from the perspective of a different narrator, taking place roughly ten years after the previous one.

In 1984, 15-year-old Holly Sykes runs away from home to live with her older boyfriend, Vinny Costello. Just before she leaves, she is given a maze by her younger brother, Jacko, who implores her to memorize it. Holly then discovers that Vinny has cheated on her with her best friend.

Holly leaves her hometown of Gravesend, Kent, out of spite for her family. She comes across a woman named Esther Little, who asks for asylum. Unsure what Esther means, Holly agrees. After Holly’s classmate Ed Brubeck tells her about a nearby farm where he picks fruits in the summer, Holly decides to go there to work; on her way to the farm, she believes she sees Jacko entering an underpass and follows. The underpass transforms as soon as Holly enters: In it, Holly sees Miss Constantin, a strange woman who used to appear in Holly’s room at night. Later, Holly meets two postgraduate students named Ian and Heidi, with whom she hitches a ride.

Suddenly, Heidi and Ian are murdered by a mysterious man with telekinetic powers. The man presses Holly for information on Esther Little and Marinus—the doctor who helped Holly with the voices she used to hear as a child. Ian and Heidi’s bodies suddenly come back to life, claiming to have been inhabited by the souls of Esther and Marinus. Esther kills the assailant, and then asks to redeem the asylum Holly has promised her. Holly’s memories of Ian and Heidi are erased as she continues to make her way to the fruit farm. Shortly after she begins working there, Ed finds her and tells her that Jacko has vanished. This prompts her to return home.

In 1991, Hugo Lamb, an amoral Cambridge student, swindles a war veteran and a school friend for their valuable possessions. He meets Holly in Switzerland and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, rather than face the consequences of his actions, Hugo considers escaping his life and changing his identity, assisted by an old acquaintance named Elijah d’Arnoq, an attractive woman named Immaculée Constantin, and their superior, Baptiste Pfenninger, who have discovered a way to cheat death. Driven by his fear, Hugo joins their group—the Anchorites.

In 2004, Ed Brubeck is married and has children with Holly. Ed, a war correspondent, is reeling from the loss of two colleagues in the occupation of Iraq. Before her sister Sharon’s wedding, Holly is furious to learn that Ed has chosen to remain in Iraq rather than move back with her and their daughter, Aoife, in London. When Aoife suddenly disappears on the night of the wedding, Holly falls into a seizure and correctly identifies the room where Ed later finds Aoife. Ed admits to Holly that he is addicted to the thrill of his work and encourages her to write about the voices she heard as a child. Several years later, Ed is killed by a missile in Syria.

In 2015, English author Crispin Hershey is an incorrigible presence on the national literary scene. He feels mildly threatened when Holly Sykes finds relative success with her memoir, The Radio People. Over the next five years, however, Crispin and Holly become close friends, especially as Crispin witnesses Holly’s psychic abilities and Holly sees Crispin become a more sympathetic person. During this time, Holly learns that she has gallbladder cancer and Crispin becomes a father. They remain close friends. In 2020, Crispin is teaching creative writing at a New York college when he is suddenly killed by a girl named Soleil Moore, who insists on sharing her work with him so that he can warn the world about the Anchorites.

In 2025, Marinus, who now inhabits the body of a doctor named Iris Fenby, receives a tape sent by Esther Little, who is still alive and in asylum. Shortly after, Elijah d’Arnoq reaches out to Marinus; he wishes to defect from the Anchorites. This prompts Marinus’s group, Horology, to plan a Second Mission to destroy the Anchorites. The First Mission, in 1984, went disastrously. Marinus reaches out to Holly, whose cancer is in remission, and tries to convince her that he is the same Marinus she encountered in childhood. Marinus then explains that the Horologists are beings whose souls migrate from body to body indefinitely. Their rivals, the Anchorites, are similarly deathless, except that they attain their immortality by consuming the souls of those with strong psychic energy. Marinus reveals that he saved Holly as a child by rendering her energy inert to Miss Constantin. Holly also learns that her brother, Jacko, was actually the Horologist leader, Xi Lo, whose soul was destroyed during the First Mission.

Holly agrees to join the Horologists on the Second Mission. Marinus is able to extract Esther Little’s soul from Holly’s memories, and Esther leads the Horologists to a crack in the Anchorites’ chapel, which will allow them to destroy their enemies. However, Elijah’s offer to defect is a trap; the Anchorites engage in a violent battle that leaves many of the Horologists dead. Esther is able to exploit the crack and destroy the chapel. Marinus and Holly escape through a series of passages that Holly recognizes as the labyrinth Jacko gave her many years ago. Holly flees the collapsing chapel, and Marinus and Hugo use their remaining shared power to escape.

In 2043, Holly is in her 70s, caring for her granddaughter Lorelei, whose parents have died, and her adoptive grandson, Rafiq, a refugee washed up on the shore of Sheep’s Head peninsula, where Holly lives. Holly is frightened for her grandchildren’s survival, especially when Ireland falls into unrest after the withdrawal of the Chinese military. However, Marinus reappears in the body of a man named Harry Veracruz, who has come to repatriate Lorelei to her father’s home country of Iceland. Holly asks Marinus to bring Rafiq along with them as well, and Marinus agrees. The novel ends as she bids her old friend and her grandchildren goodbye.