A God In Ruins

 

I absolutely adored Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, to which A God in Ruins is the companion volume. Life After Life set out an array of possible lives (and deaths) for Ursula Todd; A Life in Ruins centres on Ursula's brother, Teddy, and while the structure of this novel is different from Life After Life, it still features Atkinson's inventive agility in mixing up time frames, dodging back and forth between possibilities and ingenious cross referencing.

Ursula's life (lives) ended up revolving around the central experience of the London Blitz; Teddy's life similarly pivots on the bombing campaign against Germany. He is a fighter pilot in a Halifax, and the bombing sequences in this book are so harrowing and vivid -- Atkinson has clearly done a lot of research, and uses it supremely well. Ironically, the section that I couldn't bear to read properly and had to skim was nothing to do with the war, but concerned a character with a brain tumour -- having lost a friend in the same way, I simply couldn't bring myself to relive that experience.

I greatly admire Kate Atkinson as a writer, and I've loved the Jackson Brodie series, but Life After Life and A God In Ruins are her masterpieces.