The Ministry of Time

The Ministry of Time, published in 2024, is Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel. Bradley is a British Cambodian writer and editor who won the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar and V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prizes. Both humorous and poignant, the novel combines elements of various genres, including science fiction, romance, spy thriller, and historical fiction. It pairs a present-day, unnamed narrator, newly employed by a top-secret government agency, with Victorian-era naval commander Graham Gore, extracting him from 1847. Through Graham’s reactions to the unfamiliar modernity, Bradley reveals the downsides of perceived social and technological progress, the timeless struggles accompanying the loss of home and identity, and the blunt-force trauma of being in love.

This guide uses the e-book edition of the text published in 2024 by Avid Reader Press.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide refer to historical genocide and portray the lasting impacts of colonialism, racism, and sexism.

Plot Summary

In 1847, Commander Graham Gore is part of a naval expedition that has been stuck in the Arctic, far from civilization, for two years. The risks of death from the cold, thirst, starvation, and illness loom large over the crew. While hunting for food, Graham sees a flash of light and a blue doorway. It’s the last thing he remembers. Later, the rest of his crew abandons their ships and attempts to march 800 miles to civilization. They all perish on the way.

In the present, the novel’s unnamed narrator acquires a top-secret job in a British government department called the Ministry. She learns the Ministry has access to time travel and has extracted five expatriates (or expats) from history in an experiment to observe the effects of time travel on them, both physically and psychologically. The narrator will spend a year as a “bridge,” constantly monitoring the expat from 1847 (Graham Gore) and helping him adjust to modern society. Even intense culture shock can’t subdue Graham’s charm, humor, and self-control. Before long, the narrator begins to fall hopelessly in love with him. The two develop friendships with the expats from 1916 and 1665, Arthur and Maggie, as well as Arthur’s bridge, Simellia. All five of the expats in the Ministry’s experiment undergo constant testing to assess their health, cognitive integrity, and social adjustment.

A man the narrator refers to as the Brigadier begins hanging around the Ministry, often with another man named Salese. She assumes they work for the Ministry of Defence and chalks their odd manner of speech up to the top brass always living in the past. In addition, she attributes little significance to Graham’s description of a handheld projection device he saw at the Ministry, though it doesn’t sound like any object she’s ever seen. Her handler, Quentin, becomes agitated when he sees Graham’s sketch of the device. His fear escalates when the expat from 1973 stops showing up on body scanners and MRIs, and he insists they’re being spied on. The narrator pays little attention to what she deems his paranoia. She’s distracted by developments with the expats, like revelations that Maggie is a lesbian and Arthur is either gay or bisexual.

After Quentin disappears and Ministry leadership says he defected, Vice Secretary Adela assigns herself as the narrator’s new handler. The narrator admires this steely, mysterious woman who wears an eye patch and has a heavily reconstructed face. Adela reveals the Brigadier and Salese are spies, and they’ve evaded the Ministry’s surveillance. Meanwhile, Graham begins training to become a field agent for the Ministry. At a ceremony for his admittance to the program, Quentin appears in the crowd and gives the narrator a document (which reveals how the Ministry stole the time-door) just before a sniper kills him. The narrator is traumatized by his murder and descends into a debilitating depression.

The expat from 1793 is shot and killed while trying to escape the Ministry. The narrator finds evidence that someone is framing her for sabotaging the Ministry’s security system. She and Graham are out one night, drunk, when the Brigadier and Salese accost them and try to kill them with a futuristic weapon. The time-door, it turns out, can support only a finite number of time travelers. The Brigadier and Salese can’t return to their time unless they kill two others. Graham and the narrator escape, and the adrenaline rush, fear, and alcohol lead the narrator to act on her attraction to Graham. When the Ministry learns about the attempt on their lives, the expats and bridges are moved and confined to safe houses. There, Graham and the narrator begin a full-fledged romantic (and sexual) relationship.

Ministry operations have descended into chaos when Graham finds that Arthur has been killed and Maggie is missing. He and the narrator reunite with Maggie in an underground tunnel system. The narrator reveals that tracking devices were implanted in the expats and that she betrayed Graham by not telling him sooner. Adela arranges protection for the expats and tells the narrator to meet her. The narrator arrives to find the Brigadier and Salese holding Adela at gunpoint. Adela explains that she’s the narrator’s future self and that this all happened before, though last time Arthur and Maggie both died. In her timeline, she and Graham are married and have a son. The Brigadier and Salese, who have come from much further in the future, claim the Ministry killed the expats. They also blame the Ministry for a bleak future world, which inspired their attempt to go back in time and assassinate Adela. The two women kill Salese and snatch the Brigadier’s weapon, causing him to flee.

Back at the Ministry, the narrator tries to use her gun to destroy the time-door. She fails to destroy it, but the damage causes the Brigadier and Adela to implode. Back at the safe house, Graham treats the narrator like an enemy. He says he and Maggie are leaving and the narrator won’t see them again. The Ministry forces the narrator to retire. She moves in with her parents and takes a meaningless job as she tries to recover emotionally. One day, she receives a package from Graham. She uses clues from a photo it contains to determine that Graham and Maggie are in Alaska and decides to go there to look for the man she loves. She writes a note to her past self, urging her to make better choices if she wants a better future.