Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

‘Don’t you wonder sometimes,’ Ursula said. ‘If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean….surely things would be different.’

I admit I am a big fan of Kate Atkinson’s writing, having read most of her previous novels, with a particular fondness for the Jackson Brodie stories, my favourite probably being ‘When Will There Be Good News?’. I was therefore so excited to hear about a new novel coming from her and filled with great anticipation upon starting to read.

Life After Life didn’t disappoint me; I think this is a very special book in many ways. It is imbued with the sparkling prose and the dark humour that is so often evident in Kate Atkinson’s works. But this book features something rather clever and wonderful in terms of the structure and storyline.

The main character, Ursula Todd is born in 1910, during a heavy snowstorm, but sadly dies immediately, there’s no time for the doctor to reach her. Then we read that Ursula Todd is born in 1910 during a heavy snowstorm, and lives. She has another chance, another start at life, and this pattern, this unique quality, stays with her as she lives, and lives again, and changes the direction of her life, having chance after chance to get it just right. What a premise!

We accompany Ursula as she lives through many of the major events of the twentieth century, with her personal highs and lows recounted, then changed, as she has another chance at her life, and then another. She takes a different route, and a different course is set. Kate Atkinson writes of the personal experiences of one woman in a way that makes for compelling reading. I loved Ursula’s family and thought they were also all vividly brought to life, in particular her mother Sylvie. However clever the structure, I never felt distanced from Ursula as a character, as a woman. She endures some of the hardest times, the saddest events, and the reader grows close to her and hopes for better next time.

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect in terms of how this novel would work, but I gave myself time to get into the novel, through the early, often very short episodes as Ursula begins to find her way. I was soon drawn into Ursula’s life, her family, the events, and I was keen to return to them every time I picked the book up, little knowing what would await me.

When Ursula lives again, sometimes very little has changed, sometimes a lot is different. There are some thrilling moments, dramatic and tragic; then the reader realises that there is another chance at the story and can breathe again – it’s quite an experience reading this book. Usually after another go, things are better, but Ursula’s life demonstrates that there are always hard choices, difficult relationships; there is always some sadness, even when she has had more than one chance to live through a particular time. It’s a powerful and emotional experience to read this story.

This is by turns a surprising, unnerving, moving and rewarding read and it sets itself apart with a clever structure to the narrative and a distinctive main character who we live through different experiences with, over and over again, as we read. It’s a fascinating and fantastic concept that really made me think as I read. What does this mean for fate? What if we could all change things, or go back and have a second chance? 

Published by Doubleday on 14th March 2013

Thanks very much to the publisher for kindly sending a copy of this novel to read and review.

My Policeman - Bethan Roberts

‘The words that come to mind when I think of my policeman are light and delight.’

This is a wonderful literary novel from Bethan Roberts. Beautifully written, heart rending in it’s pain, not a word out of place I felt, and it tells of the love, secrets, shame and torment endured in the lives of three people, Marion, Tom and Patrick.

The opening grabs the reader’s attention. We are immediately plunged into Marion’s very personal written confession addressed directly to a man named Patrick, and the year is now 1999. She revisits her earlier life, as a teenage girl in Brighton. Marion falls for her friend Sylvie’s older brother Tom. He is ‘the beautiful young man with the big arms and the dark blond curls’ and once she has seen him she is rapt. With Tom heading off to national service, Marion trains as a teacher and awaits his return with hopes of a future for them together. Despite small inklings and some words from Sylvie, Marion marries Tom, now a policeman, and believes their relationship will work.

As we progress further into the story, we then are privy to some of Patrick’s diary accounts from back in 1957, when he fell in love with his policeman. Patrick works as a curator in Brighton Museum, and having met Tom by chance one day, Patrick introduces him to the appeal of art and opens up a new world to him. There is a beautiful, tender mutual attraction between them but at the time they meet there is nothing but condemnation for any romantic relationship that the two might have.

The dual narratives of Marion and Patrick take us through the whole of the story, as we learn from them about their perspectives on their relationship with the man who dominates both their lives; the man they must share until it becomes too much and their worlds collapse.

I really loved this novel and read it in only a few sittings – it’s a compelling story. I couldn’t wait to discover the revelations and details about Marion and Patrick’s lives with Tom, to find out how the past had unfolded for each of them and what more could happen in the present. The author depicts the emotions of Marion and Patrick so vividly; as we hear from them both first-hand and know of their hopes, their past pain, their longings and disappointments.

Bethan Roberts convincingly brings to life an era when women were still limited in their career choices, still intended primarily for life at home and expected to marry and raise a family, and an era when the love that is shared between Patrick and Tom is something to be ashamed of, hidden away; men who loved each other were referred to as ‘sexual inverts’ and were punished.

It was heartbreaking to think of the pain and sadness of wasted love and lives ruined by the constraints and judgements of society. This novel captures that heartbreak, and it absolutely pulsates with the sadness inherent in it all.

A perceptive, emotional and absorbing read by a talented writer. Marvellous.


Reviewed by Lindsay Healy

Published by Chatto & Windus

Reviewed for amazon vine