The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014) is a science fiction thriller by British author Claire North, a pseudonym for Catherine Webb. The novel centers on Harry August, a man who is reborn in the same time and place each time he dies, retaining all his memories. When he learns that the end of the world is accelerating with each life cycle, he must use his unique position in time to uncover the cause and stop it. The book explores themes of The Relationship Between Memory and Personal Identity, The Moral Calculus of Intervention in History, and The Corruption of Unchecked Ambition. The novel received critical acclaim, winning the 2015 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and a nomination for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

This guide is based on the 2014 Redhook trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain depictions of death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation and/or self-harm, graphic violence, illness, mental illness, substance use, rape, child death, child abuse, cursing, and physical abuse.

Plot Summary

The narrative begins in 1996, at the end of Harry August’s 11th life. As he lies dying, a seven-year-old girl named Christa visits him. She delivers a message passed back through time from 1,000 years in the future: The world is ending, and its end is accelerating with each life cycle. She tasks Harry with relaying this warning to the Cronus Club, a secret society of people like him.

Harry is a kalachakra, or ouroboran, one of a small number of people who are reborn at the same point in time with the memories of their past lives intact. He is born on New Year’s Day, 1919, in a train station lavatory. His mother, Elizabeth Leadmill, a servant at Hulne Hall, dies in childbirth. His biological father is Rory Hulne, the master of the house, but to avoid scandal, Harry is adopted by Patrick and Harriet August, a working-class couple from the estate.

Harry’s first life is unremarkable. He serves in World War II, works as a groundskeeper at Hulne House, and dies of multiple myeloma in 1989, unaware of his true parentage. When he is reborn with his memories, the shock traumatizes him; he is hospitalized at St. Margot’s Asylum at age seven and dies by suicide. In his third life, he resolves to understand his condition. He investigates his past, discovers his illegitimacy, and realizes that Rory Hulne is his father, but he finds no answers regarding his nature as a kalachakra.

In his fourth life, Harry becomes a neurologist and marries a surgeon named Jenny. He confides his secret to her, but she believes he is delusional and has him committed to St. Margot’s. There, he is drugged and abused until he is taken into the custody of Franklin Phearson, an American intelligence agent. Phearson tells Harry about the myth of the Cronus Club, a secret society he is investigating, and tortures him for information about the future. Harry manages to send a message to the real Cronus Club through a friend. A senior Club member, Virginia, contacts him, arranging for him to escape Phearson via suicide and instructing him to meet her in London in his next life.

In his fifth life, Harry meets Virginia during the Blitz. She formally introduces him to the Cronus Club and its rules, the most important of which are not to harm other kalachakra and not to interfere with major historical events. She also recounts the story of Victor Hoeness, a kalachakra whose attempt to alter history triggered a nuclear apocalypse. As punishment, the Club had him “killed” pre-birth, illustrating Virginia’s final piece of advice: never reveal one’s point of origin, as this information could be used to prevent one’s birth, causing a true death. During these explanations, Harry realizes he is a mnemonic, a rare kalachakra who remembers everything perfectly across lives, unlike most members, whose memories fade over centuries.

Following Christa’s message, Harry is reborn into his 12th life. The Cronus Club convenes, and its members deduce that a kalachakra must be responsible for the accelerating end of the world, as linear historical events otherwise remain constant. Harry therefore investigates technological anomalies, tracing an advanced radio to an East German engineer, Daniel van Thiel, who credits a brilliant Soviet scientist named Vitali Karpenko. After van Thiel is murdered, Harry travels to a secret Soviet research facility, Pietrok-112, where he discovers that Karpenko is actually Vincent Rankis, a fellow mnemonic whom Harry knew in his sixth life.

In that former life, Vincent revealed his grand ambition: to build a quantum mirror, a device capable of extrapolating all knowledge of the universe from a single atom, which he believes will explain the nature of their existence. Now, he is embarking on this project. Motivated by a desire for answers and a sense of purpose, Harry agrees to help. For 10 years, they work together, accelerating technological development far beyond its normal course. However, during a leave from the facility, Harry discovers that the Leningrad Cronus Club has been destroyed. Vincent admits that he orchestrated the attack to prevent the Club from interfering with their project. Horrified, Harry confronts Vincent, arguing that their actions are causing the end of the world. When Vincent refuses to reconsider, Harry tries to escape but is captured.

Vincent tortures Harry for his point of origin, intending to use it as leverage. Before he can break, Harry manages to ingest poison. As he is dying, Vincent subjects him to the Forgetting, a procedure to erase his memory. However, because Harry is a mnemonic, the procedure fails, and he is reborn with his memories intact.

In his 13th life, Harry finds the Cronus Club in ruins. Vincent has launched a global purge, subjecting members to the Forgetting or having them killed pre-birth. Harry goes into hiding, building a criminal empire to secretly gather intelligence. He discovers that Virginia is Vincent’s accomplice; her earlier birth year allowed her to carry out the pre-birth “murders” of kalachakra born earlier in the century. Harry captures her and administers the Forgetting as punishment. The world, meanwhile, suffers from the consequences of Vincent’s accelerated technology, facing environmental disasters and geopolitical instability.

In his 14th life, Harry devises a plan to stop Vincent. He allows Vincent to find him, pretending to be a memory-wiped kalachakra in only his second life and becoming Vincent’s trusted assistant. When Harry once again develops multiple myeloma, Vincent again uses a Forgetting device to wipe his memories, but the attempt is no more successful than the first. A similar pattern repeats in Harry’s 15th life as he becomes Vincent’s assistant once more. Eventually, he gains access to his inner circle and the new quantum mirror facility in Switzerland. Over several years, Harry subtly sabotages the project by altering key technical specifications. When the mirror is tested, it results in a catastrophic meltdown, fatally exposing both Harry and Vincent to radiation.

As they lie dying together, they share stories and confessions. In a moment of vulnerability, Vincent reveals his true name and point of origin. Believing Harry’s memory is gone, Vincent attempts to use a more advanced Forgetting device on him one last time, an act he frames as a mercy to spare Harry the memory of his painful death. The device does not achieve its purpose, and Harry discharges himself from the hospital. He then writes a letter, the novel itself, to be delivered to the dying Vincent. In it, Harry reveals his deception and his ultimate plan. Using the knowledge of Vincent’s point of origin, Harry will poison Vincent’s parents before he can be conceived, erasing him from existence and restoring the timeline.