Benjamin’s “Under Story” Explores CPT-Symmetric Universe, Marriage, and OCD

Chloe Benjamin’s third novel, Under Story, draws from speculative physics and lived emotional experience. The book centers on a divorced couple navigating time, grief, and acceptance—themes rooted in both scientific curiosity and personal mental health history.

Origins in Antarctic Physics and Domestic Life

The novel emerged from two parallel inspirations: the 2020 ANITA neutrino experiment at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station and Benjamin’s long-standing interest in marriage as a self-contained world. ANITA detected anomalous results later disproven as evidence for a CPT-symmetric universe—a theoretical model proposing the Big Bang generated two universes, one with inverted time—but the idea lodged in Benjamin’s imagination.

Simultaneously, she sought to examine long-term partnership—not as backdrop but as terrain. Having been married for many years, she viewed enduring relationships as both profoundly ordinary and existentially charged. That duality informed the novel’s structure: the central couple is already divorced when the narrative begins, establishing tension through absence rather than conflict.

Acceptance as Narrative Core

Benjamin clarifies that Under Story is not, at its heart, about reversing past decisions. Instead, it engages what she terms “the both of it”—the inseparability of joy and tragedy in human life. Acceptance, in this framework, is neither passive resignation nor final resolution but an ongoing effort amid unavoidable uncertainty and loss.

“I write about these things not because I have found acceptance, but because I’m trying to,” she states. Her framing avoids prescriptive conclusions, anchoring the novel in process rather than outcome. The stakes arise directly from her stated love of life itself—its intensity heightens the weight of its fragility.

Psychology, Storytelling, and Neural Pathways

Benjamin’s engagement with psychology predates her fiction. Though trained in English and creative writing, she worked in administrative roles within social services while drafting her first two novels. Her fascination with how minds operate—and how stories shape perception—underpins both her craft and her clinical experience.

She has OCD, a condition she links explicitly to fear, uncertainty, and internal narrative. After writing a character with OCD in The Immortalists, she pursued exposure therapy, which she describes as transformative. Similarly, her chronic migraines responded not to conventional interventions alone but to brain-based approaches treating pain as a learned neural response—akin to somatic reactions like nervous stomachs. MRI studies cited by Benjamin associate chronic pain with learning and memory circuits, suggesting those pathways can be retrained. “If you change the story, your reality can change, too,” she observes.

Consciousness, Sentience, and Nonhuman Worlds

In Under Story, consciousness functions as the evolving story of one’s relationship with oneself—an internal dialogue persisting across time. Benjamin extends this inquiry beyond humans, probing nonhuman sentience. She rejects anthropocentric hierarchy, emphasizing humility before other forms of life: “The more you appreciate a pig or a tree, the more unbearable the thought of their suffering becomes.” This perspective shaped the novel’s tone, leaving her “very tenderized” during composition.

Reader Engagement and Real-World Stakes

Benjamin names two hopes for readers: deepened wonder and care for all life forms, and renewed commitment to physical presence and connection in a digitally mediated era. These aims reflect the novel’s dual orientation—toward speculative possibility and grounded human consequence—without collapsing one into the other.