Life after Life

by Kate Atkinson

A book that made such a mark on me, and yet one that I find it impossible to write about.  Why?

I read this book again shortly before its (standalone) sequel, A God in Ruins. I reviewed neither book until now – December 2019 – and I really can’t say why.  Is it because the impression these two books left is so strong?  Certainly I found that both books portrayed some of the terrifying situations of war in a way more graphic and real than any I had previously read.  In the case of this book it is the descriptions of the London Blitz that hit home.

No reviewer, even an amateur like myself, could omit to mention the structure of this book.  The story of Atkinson’s main character, Ursula, is told in several possible versions.  The first few chapters explore some very brief versions of her life: Dead at or soon after birth; dying of an accident in childhood; dying at various stages in her young adult life.  It is easy enough to see where the book’s title came from.  Some readers find this annoying, perhaps preferring a more linear or at any rate a single narrative storyline, rather than several alternatives.  I wasn’t put off at all by this device.  I enjoy reading short stories, and for me each ‘reincarnation’ satisfied the yearning I often get at the end of a short story whose protagonist I have engaged with: so, what happens next?

Each of Ursula’s ‘lives’ is plausible. there is nothing extraordinary about this girl/woman or the situations she finds herself in.  Even her various deaths are realistic possibilities – and the fact that she escapes them in subsequent versions is shown to be very much a quirk of fate.  And this throws into relief all our lives and possible lives – that we are at the mercy of circumstances, over many of which we have no control.

Writing this, I feel compelled to read both books again, but especially this one.