Kate Atkinson does it again.

During a snowstorm on February 11^th 1910, a baby girl is born. And dies.

During a snowstorm on February 11^th 1910, a baby girl is born and survives.

And life goes on...or does it?

A new Kate Atkinson novel is always special. Recently, she has concentrated on her hugely enjoyable Jackson Brodie books. And as much as I always rush to read one as soon as it's published, a new “non-Brodie” book is extra-special. 

The word ‘quirky’ has been often used to describe Kate Atkinson’s novels, such as Behind the Scenes at the Museum and my favourite, Emotionally Weird. However, ‘quirky’ can't do justice to Life After Life. Please don't take that to mean it's totally off-the-wall or silly  It's nothing of the kind. It would be pointless of me to try and explain the plot. Suffice to say, it is a historical novel about a middle-class family between 1910 and 1968 in which the narrative focuses on Ursula Todd, one of the children of the family. Only it's not that simple. She has multiple lives. How many is anyone's guess. Events and people change subtly. In one life certain character exist and in others do not. Choices are made that shift the dynamics or alter them totally live. The possibilities are endless.

This not achieved by the literary equivalent of  CGI-created science-fiction/fantasy films but by a thoughtful exploration of the paths chosen or not chosen and how tiny acts make for massive changes. At first, I assumed that when Ursula gets another chance to make things better, she is consciously behaving in certain way in order to 'get it right this time.' But no. Sometimes the consequences are even more tragic than the one she is trying to avoid. One of the pivotal event-changes is Ursula's frantic attempts to prevent the death of someone special to her by stopping her from travelling to London for the 1918 Armistice celebrations. The  consequences are even more catastrophic- or not - but never exactly the same. Sometimes, she seems to know instinctively that she has to act. For instance, a particularly harrowing episode that begins innocuously enough never recurs.) But the more the novel continues, the more we understands is that life is pure chance without shape or purpose. It's not easy to write such a novel without making it gimmicky. The Time Traveller's Wife it is not.

Life after Life moves backwards and forwards in time from 1910 to 1968 and takes strange twists. Sometimes Ursula is in Germany and mingling with the leading lights of the Third Reich or suffering the various manifestations of the London Blitz.  Each time, the reasons make perfect sense in that particular time-line. The reader ends each section with the relief (but also regret) like waking up after a particularly vivid nightmare. You are on edge, you relax, you tremble at the inevitable around the corner but it is never exactly what you expect. But whatever happens, darkness will fall sooner or later.

I don't want you to think Life After Life is over-complicated or ‘literary’ in the pejorative way some will use it to mean incomprehensible and arty-farty. It’s literary all right, because it is a well-written novel with many layers. But it is a also a stonking page-turner with compelling characters, drama, humour and tragedy. As the novel progresses, we get to know the members of Ursula’s family, friends and lovers. And each time, we learn something new or surprising or something that explains something that has gone before - or turns it on its head. I’d love to know how Kate Atkinson wrote it without getting into a total tangle. Herding cats would be much easier. Like that serene swan that hides its frantic underwater paddling, the result for the reader is seamless. 

On turning the final page, I felt bereft by Ursula’s absence from my life. Whether she was consciously aware of her previous lives whether long or short is left open. It's up to the reader. My 'take' is that she wasn't but that, occasionally, she had those weird feelings we all get from time to time that we call déjà vu or a premonitions. Or that sense that  we have all been here before. Some people never feel this way. Others do. Why is that? Do we all live multiple lives or is or sensation of it merely a primeval quirk of our brain chemistry? Discuss.

So yes, quirky but intelligently and entertainingly told. No-one writes like Kate Atkinson. 

There's more about Life After Life and Kate's previous books here on her website.

PS. I hope to hear her speak in Harrogate in June at this year's Crime Writing Festival. Are you going? It's a great event to attend if you're a writer or a reader - or both..