Life After Life – Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson loves playing with time. Most straightforwardly her Jackson Brodie books use teasing flashbacks to enhance the narrative, while her debut novel ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ was full of inter-generational echoes. In Life After Life it gets more complicated.

Ursula Todd is born on 11 February 1910 but dies immediately as the doctor, held up by the snow, fails to arrive in time to deal with a tangled cord. Then Ursula Todd is born on 11 February 1910 and the doctor, held up by the snow, arrives just in time to deal successfully with a tangled cord and present a healthy baby to mother Sylvie.

Thus Ursula begins a lifetime (or several) in which she grows, succumbs to perils, regresses to 11 February 1910, grows again, survives perils, only to meet new ones. The perils are both personal – a beach, a high window, puberty, domestic violence – and epic – two world wars and their aftermath.

Though Ursula experiences discomforting feelings of déjà vu and premonitions of danger, it is only in later cycles that a more conscious realisation dawns and provides tempting opportunities to ‘put things right’.

In less assured hands the repetition could be wearing, but here nuanced variations and filling of gaps make for an enthralling account of Ursula’s life and times. The Todd family members and their relationships are wholly believable; the period pieces, particularly the London blitz, have authenticity; and even the surprise appearance of a dark figure from history does not seem out of place.

It is not a quick read at 600 pages, particularly as there is a temptation (to which I gave in) to read several of them more than once to check whether it is your memory or Atkinson that is playing tricks. Within those pages are comedy (Ursula has a dry wit), tragedy (people die, often more than once), and no little history – a veritable Shakespearean canon in the one brilliant volume.

Joyland – Stephen King

Devin Jones looks back on the summer of ’73 with mixed feelings. Twenty-one, two years into college in New Hampshire, with a steady (if unconsummated) relationship with girlfriend Wendy, he finds himself abandoned for the summer when she goes off to work at some dream job with a friend. On a whim he answers an advert for summer help at Joyland, a North Carolina coastal amusement ride park, successfully interviews and moves south for the season.

The location is idyllic (it’s a stroll along the beach from his seaside town digs to the park); the work is hard, particularly “wearing the fur” in a hundred degree heat as the park’s mascot “Howie the Happy Hound”, but fun - ensuring the visitors have an enjoyable day. He makes good friends with the other casuals, including Tom & Erin at his digs, but the regular ‘carnie’ folk are a mixed bunch, some suspicious, some supportive, some hostile and all unconventional.

He is soon intrigued by two mysteries. First the ‘Horror House’ dark ride is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a girl found murdered therein a couple of summers earlier, the crime still unsolved. Second, more personal, involves a disabled boy and a young woman whose opulent beach house he passes each morning and evening; the boy waves, the woman doesn’t. Their names, he later discovers, are Annie and Mike Ross, mother and son.

The narrative (it is Devin looking back) and the mysteries unfold over the long hot summer. Devin’s emotional highs and lows would be at home on the ‘Delirium Shaker’ – Joyland’s roller coaster – as dumped at long distance by Wendy he finds himself attracted to both digs-mate Erin and the distant Annie. At work his performances in the fur (and competence in first aid) make him a hero with the kids, but the harsh realities of Mike’s condition are a constant worry. Then Erin’s digging into the unsolved murder provides both danger and the opportunity to unmask the killer. As the southern end-of-summer heat builds to thunderstorms, so his summer of adventure builds to an exciting climax (or two).

Stephen King is of course a master of storytelling and I particularly like his shorter and less supernatural work such as this. Strong on character, plot, tension and atmosphere this is an exceedingly good read.

The Last Battle – Cornelius Ryan

The third book in Cornelius Ryan’s World War Two reportage trilogy (following on from the better known ‘The Longest Day’ telling the story of the D-day landings and ‘A Bridge Too Far’ which covered the ill-fated attempt to take Arnhem) takes for its subject the final days of the war in Europe, leading to the fall of Berlin.

As in the previous volumes, events unfold through the lives and experience of the survivors – named British, American, Russian and German soldiers, politicians and diplomats, and also the (mainly German) civilians caught in the crossfire. Ryan weaves their testimony, acquired through numerous interviews, with military and governmental records of the time to produce a coherent and compelling narrative.

The result is a riveting read. Although the outcome of the battle is history, how it unfolded, how the key strategic and political decisions were arrived at, and the effects of these on individuals, be they combatants or civilians, ensures interest is maintained to the bitter end.

Light is shed for example on why the Western Allies left Berlin to the Russians, what the fate was of ordinary Berliners once the defences were breached, and on Hitler’s mind set and actions during those last days in the bunker.

Troop manoeuvres and combat are covered, but the main thrust is not military tactics but the impact on individual men and women. Like any cross section, these individuals include heroes and cowards, saints and villains, as well as those who just kept their head down or took their own lives in despair.

A good book in its own right and a fitting final volume to the trilogy.