Secular shelf life

LIFE AFTER LIFE
By Kate Atkinson
Doubleday. 477 pages. £18.99
ISBN 978 0 385 618 670

It is 1910. The snow is falling thickly, preventing Dr. Fellowes from attending Sibyl Todd who is in labour with her third child. The baby is delivered dead with the cord around its neck.

1910 again and through the snowstorm Dr. Fellowes appears with his surgical scissors, ready to cut the cord which is wrapped around the neck of little Ursula Todd.

So we are introduced to Ursula, whom we will meet again and again, living different versions of her life, sensing echoes of what could have been and choosing different paths: she is a suburban housewife, a German mother, an ARP warden in the Blitz. This may sound tricksy and artificial, but such is Atkinson’s skill in creating vivid worlds that I was utterly convinced and engaged by her characters’ different incarnations.

‘If it’s about anything, it’s about being English … what we are in our imaginations’, Kate Atkinson has said. And so it is. The defining events of the 20th century are here, seen as experienced by one family: the halcyon Edwardian days, the first and (most especially) the second world wars. But within that frame readers will find so much to think about: sibling relationships, family identity, the pressure of the past on the present, personal responsibility, courage and a lot of literary fun.

Please don’t think, however, that this is a comfortable read. The world of Ursula Todd is full of danger and horror. Darkness is a close companion to the idyll of the family home, and seems unleashed in the descriptions of the Blitz (reader beware!), but this proximity of violence and comfort makes the book powerful. Do get a copy if you can and reflect on this disordered world’s need of rescue.

Sarah Allen is a secondary school English teacher, and is currently involved in evangelism and women’s work at Hope Church, Huddersfield.