I have to admit that when I read the blurb for Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, I wasn’t overly keen. The premise – what if life came with an infinite number of do-overs? – sounds like one of those ideas that ends up being saccharine schmaltz or po-faced, try-too-hard ‘serious’ literature with a metafictional twist. But I was wrong, wrong, wrong!
Ursula Todd is born/not born in the winter of 1910 and lives (and dies) through the conflicts of the twentieth century, repeatedly treading the same ground until she gets it right, or right enough. Life After Life is everything a book should be – witty, inventive and compassionate with an engaging plot; multifaceted characters; sparkling prose; and an emotional register that will make you laugh and cry. You could run out of superlatives describing it – this is a gloriously wonderful, dazzling delight of a novel.