Campaign for the American Reader: Five novels that challenge our notions of normal time

Monday, December 23, 2024

Five novels that challenge our notions of normal time

Shelley Wood is the author of The Leap Year Gene of Kit McKinley. Her short fiction, creative non-fiction, columns, and travel-writing have appeared in a range of literary magazines and mainstream media, and her work as a medical journalist has won a range of international prizes. Her debut novel, The Quintland Sisters, about the world’s first identical quintuplets, was a #1 bestseller in Canada.

At The Nerd Daily Wood tagged five favorite "books that directly challenge or subvert our notions of regular time as a central theme or plot device." One title on the list:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Atkinson’s novel begs the “what if” question of her principal characters and plot, then asks it over and over again. Time in this novel loops back then inches forwards, hitting one dead end (quite literally) before reforging a new path over familiar but subtly altered terrain. Initially, Ursula Todd dies the moment she is born, only to get some different chances at survival—a doctor arriving sooner, the timely provenance of scissors that can cut the cord that’s strangling her. As she grows older, Ursula comes to sense death’s imminent arrival and for the reader, the repeated sense of tumbling backwards becomes both soothing and fraught. As Ursula’s life is recast, again and again, happenstance meets agency pushing us to rethink the roads not travelled or the choices made that might have led to a different ending. Or, as often proves to be the case, a fresh start.