Nat Harrison's journey through time

Nat Harrison’s debut novel, The Girl who Raced the World, delivers wild adventures, a heroine with guts and a thrilling journey in a very different time

Words: Libby Norman

Taking on the classics is a challenge, but Nat Harrison’s reimagining of Around the World in Eighty Days is brilliantly original. It delivers the pioneering spirit of Jules Verne’s adventure in a fresh way for a younger audience – and with a central character, Maggie, that we can get behind.

This is a book that’s been a long time in the making – it started with the author’s own peripatetic childhood. Nat Harrison has the distinction of a passport giving place of birth as Ascension Island, and not a lot of people can claim that. “Not many people know where it is,” she adds. “The way I explain it is if you’re looking at a map on the wall it’s usually under a drawing pin or a staple in the middle – right there between Africa and Brazil.” Her family came back to the UK when she was six months old, so she has no memories of her exotic start. “For the next ten years I didn’t really leave the south-west of England. All of my adventures were had at my grandparents’ house, either in Somerset or Dorset.”

Then came a seismic shift. “All of a sudden we packed up all of our belongings and moved halfway round the world to Hong Kong. It was the first time I’d been on a plane so a lot of the excitement and the wonder that you see from Maggie when she gets on the road is definitely from my own memories of stepping off the plane into a strange, amazing, terrifying, brilliant new world.”

Nat Harrison's journey through time — Nat Harrison outside the Jules Verne Museum in Amiens. Top: portrait by Charlotte Knee Photography

Nat Harrison attended the British Forces school St George’s for three formative years that she remembers as magical. “I had friends who were American, Malay, Burmese, Chinese, Thai – and that just gives you such an interesting perspective when you have so many kids from so many different backgrounds altogether in the same classroom.”

Coming back to the West Country in 1989 was a culture shock. “I was miserably homesick for Hong Kong.” she says. “For me, Hong Kong was home. Three years doesn’t sound a lot to us, but to a ten-year-old it’s a lifetime. I knew Hong Kong, it was my love. I didn’t want to leave.”

The traveller’s spirit stuck, and Nat Harrison ended up in Silicon Valley, working for Motorola, Apple and then, for four-and-a-half years, a then smallish startup called Airbnb. Living in California for a decade was exciting, but also full-on. Although she wanted to write, time was against her. “It’s quite hard to be creative when you’re getting on at 4am,” she says. “I tried and tried and tried. I did courses at Stanford and short courses.”

So, when Nat Harrison and her husband planned their return to the UK, she decided it was now or never. She enrolled on an Arvon Foundation short course and, with the encouragement of two of its author-tutors, Steve Voake and Liz Flanagan, another journey began. She had reckoned a week at Arvon would be the decider, and it was. Steve Voake suggested she consider applying for the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa. “Moving around between schools, I didn’t learn grammar. I always had a bugbear about having big gaps in my English,” she says. “So I didn’t think I had what it took.” She was wrong. “I got in, passed with a Distinction – which is amazing – and this is the book that got started on the course. So I am forever grateful to Arvon and Steve for giving me the push I needed.”

The initial sketch of The Girl who Raced Around the World happened in her very first class at Bath. But the idea had been spinning around for years – inspired not by Jules Verne but Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin. She and her family sat down to watch the TV one evening soon after their return from Hong Kong, and something magical happened. “Suddenly Hong Kong came into our living room. As a family we were mesmerised – it took us all back instantly. We probably warped that VHS tape because we watched it so many times.”

After watching the TV programme, Nat Harrison read Jules Verne. It could never be as visually immersive as Michael Palin’s journey, but The Girl who Raced the World honours the literary original. Phileas Fogg and Passepartout are both there, as is Inspector Fix, but young Maggie (Magnolia) Appleton is the undisputed star. Orphaned and a runaway from the workhouse, she tries to deliver a letter to Passepartout’s London address from her beloved Maman. This sets in motion her role in that great race around the world. New characters add to the fun, notably thrilling lady adventurer Valentine – more than a match for any man, Phileas Fogg included.

Time and place are beautifully drawn, and with twists and turns that threaten the wager and their very survival. For young readers used to hopping on a plane, there’s this wonderful unravelling – a sense of how vast and diverse the world is when traversed by land and sea. And, of course, there’s the transport itself. “The world has changed so much in the 150 years since Jules Verne wrote the original. But so many things have stayed the same. There’s still this incredible appeal and nostalgia for steamships and steam trains and ice sleds and wooden dhows.”

The fact that Maggie helps Phileas Fogg win the bet that saves his fortune – and finds her true home – makes this a hugely satisfying read. And, like all the best adventures, there’s an ending hinting that this is not where her story stops. I’ll wager that readers of The Girl who Raced the World will be hoping for more thrilling journeys for our gutsy heroine and her travelling companions.