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Time is like a palimpsest, Ursula Todd tells her former psychiatrist, comparing her life to a page that's been scraped, but with traces of the old writing blending with the new. She ought to know. In Kate Atkinson's compelling new novel, Life After Life, the baby girl who might have been Ursula Todd is born dead on a snowy 1910 day in England, her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. But then she is born again, and acquires her name. She drowns in the ocean as a little girl, but is born again on that snowy day in 1910, only to fall to death as a girl trying to rescue a doll her older brother tossed out the window. More rebirths, longer lives, more deaths. Life After Life is the second literary novel I've read this year that reflects gaming structures, consciously or otherwise, in depicting the joys, vicissitudes and choices of a life. With its second-person narration, Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia reads like a text-based role-playing game. In Life After Life, Ursula keeps re-spawning after each death, eventually gaining some ability to return to life at a key checkpoint and make a different choice. As her sequential lives pile up, Ursula lives uneasily with the powerful déjà vu that prompts her into actions inexplicable to others: As a girl, she knocks the family's Irish maid down the stairs, breaking her arm. Only Ursula knows she's saving the maid from a trip that will lead to death from influenza. The past was a jumble in her mind. While different choice points lead to some dramatically different outcomes, Ursula's personality is fairly consistent. Loves her father, Hugh. It's complicated with her mother, Sylvie. Adores her younger brother, Teddy. Forms strong friendships with sister Pamela, childhood neighbor Millie. With men, it's more than complicated. She seemed instead to be a magnet for unsavory types.. and worried that they.
Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym for Mohamed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer who decided to write under his wife’s name to avoid army censorship. He was in Sydney last year for the Writers’ Festival, at which he spoke about his novel The Swallows of Kabul. It was set in Afghanistan, but he confessed that he had never been there before, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he described the land and the atmosphere of oppression. Reading The Attack, I wondered the same thing. While there is little description of surroundings, and Khadra is a very capable writer, I doubted he had ever been there. This doesn’t weaken the book so much as emphasise that his narration is an outsider’s voice. This is apt given that his main protagonist, through whom the story is told in first person, behaves very much like a neutral observer in the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict - that is, until a horrifying event forces painful re-examination. Dr Amin Jaafari is a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship. He is an incredibly successful surgeon, awarded numerous honours and living a seemingly idyllic life with his beloved wife, Sihem. They have a beautiful house, but no children. They have strong friendships with Israelis, absorbing a lifestyle that rejects a traditional approach; they’re not practising Muslims. Amin and Sihem are ostensibly the best examples of integration, and despite some tension in the hospital, Amin is blissfully unaware of differences. If we are to believe him, his wife is generally satisfied too. For Amin, the conflict is senseless and when long ago forced to pick a side, he chose the side of his “ability”, making his convictions his “allies”. Such decisions show Amin’s character: thirsty for success, respect and to live free of conflict, nothing would stand in his way, especially not bloodshed. “I don’t think I ever, not ever once, broke the rules I set for.
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Fear is Louder Than Words Linda S. Glaz Kindle, 281 pages Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas December, 2015 ISBN: 978-1941103500 Back Cover Copy: Rochelle Cassidy has the perfect life as a radio talk show host in the Detroit market, but her celebrity status doesn't stop an angry listener from wanting her. dead. Ed McGrath's ideal life as a pro-hockey player doesn't include a damsel in distress until the night he discovers Rochelle being attacked in a deserted parking structure. Circumstances throw them together in more ways than one when Rochelle's producer plays matchmaker. A sick boy, a corrupt politician, and questionable medical practices put more than merely Rochelle in danger, and still, her attacker shadows her every step. Will Ed be able to break through her trust issues in order to protect her, or will she continue to see him as Detroit's bad boy athlete? Her life AND his depend on it. Review: Rochelle, the heroine in Fear is Louder Than Words, had an interesting job and a strong personality. She resembled a female Rush Limbaugh (although admittedly, I haven’t really heard Rush much except in commercial sound bites). I admired her commitment to her beliefs and was intrigued by her personality—a strong woman in what is largely a male-dominated field. Her strength and independent streak added depth to the stalker-storyline. Pursued by a man obsessed with destroying her, Rochelle pinged between her fears and her desire to overcome them. Intellectually, she refused to let a psycho-stalker dominate her thoughts or control her behavior, but her emotions rarely complied. In walks Ed, a strong, protective type who makes his living on the ice. This is the first novel I’ve read with a hockey player hero, and I found Ed and his career interesting. Though very much a traditional alpha male, Ed did have a softer side, especially when it came to Rochelle. Initially.