My Real Children

by Jo Walton

It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know—what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don’t seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead. She remembers the bomb that killed President Kennedy in 1963, and she remembers Kennedy in 1964, declining to run again after the nuclear exchange that took out Miami and Kiev.

Her childhood, her years at Oxford during the Second World War—those were solid things. But after that, did she marry Mark or not? Did her friends all call her Trish, or Pat? Had she been a housewife who escaped a terrible marriage after her children were grown, or a successful travel writer with homes in Britain and Italy? And the moon outside her window: does it host a benign research station, or a command post bristling with nuclear missiles?

Two lives, two worlds, two versions of modern history. Each with their loves and losses, their sorrows and triumphs. My Real Children is the tale of both of Patricia Cowan's lives...and of how every life means the entire world.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Book Club, LGBT

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 20, 2014

About the author

Jo Walton writes science fiction and fantasy novels and reads a lot and eats great food. It worries her slightly that this is so exactly what she always wanted to do when she grew up. She comes from Wales, but lives in Montreal.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

It all comes down to a choice.

Sixty years ago Patricia Cowan received an angry ultimatum that pushed her onto the crossroads of life. 'Now or never!' the angry voice demanded.

“Oh Mark,” she said. “If it’s to be now or never then—"

And without much hesitation, Patricia chose "now".
Or maybe, without much hesitation, she firmly chose "never".

And each of these choices sent her life spiraling down a completely different path, these path diverging so steeply. A life of love and a life or loneliness, a world of peace and a world of wars, the lives filled with very different - and yet all hers, all real - children.

“She was just an old woman with memory problems. Or maybe two old women with memory problems. She laughed to herself. She was herself, whether she was Pat or Trish. They knew different things and cared about different people, but she was the same person she had always been. She was the girl who had stood before the sea in Weymouth and in Barrow-in-Furness, the woman who had stood before Botticelli and before hostile council meetings. It didn’t matter what they called her, Patricia or Patsy or Trish or Pat. She was herself. She had loved Bee, and Florence, and all her children.”

Now almost ninety, Patricia Cowan no longer needs to wonder what would have happened if the choice she had made many decades ago had been different. Now frail and living in a nursing home, suffering from dementia and usually "very confused" as her chart states, she knows exactly what would have had happened - or, perhaps, simply what had happened - in both of her lives, as she is suddenly plagued with the knowledge that she lives in two different worlds, with two different - and both very real - sets of memories.



Jo Walton's My Real Children is another of those stories that have very little of sci-fi vibe to them despite being put under my favorite genre umbrella. Its unusual premise - living two parallel lives side by side - is perfect for the gentle description of a life lived, with its regrets and consequences and quiet happy moments and heartbreaking times that relentlessly slice through your soul. Two lives that yet read as one, each spun as a gentle chronicle, flying first through years, then through decades, each showing a tapestry of what eventually each thread of life weaves. Two lives, so different from one another, but both leading us to the Patricia Cowan of today, almost ninety and confused in the nursing home, inhabiting one - or both - of the worlds that are a bit different from the one we know, one with a peaceful research station on the moon, another with nuclear missiles pointed at us from the moon.

“She had made a choice already, one choice that counted among the myriad choices of her life. She had made it not knowing where it led. Could she made it again, knowing?
She sat down carefully on the edge of the bed and looked up at the blur that was one moon or the other. How many worlds were there? One? Two? An infinite number? Was there a world where she could have both happiness and peace?”

This book started with me a bit confused - why is it sci-fi, why is it this way, why is it just a story of life (or lives) without much else happening? But as the story continued, I realized that Walton's storytelling has completely captivated me, that the development of the characters of both Patricias resonated with me on some intangible level, and that the spirit and rhythm of narration created a gentle charm of literary magic that was unwilling to let me shrug it off any more. Very subtly it immersed me into the story, and before I knew it I was living it, seeing the world through both Pat's and Trish's eyes, and feeling the unexpected love and kinship with both of the women. And I loved it.

And that closing chapter, tying everything together - it made me catch my breath for a moment, and ponder about my own choices, and made me so grateful that, unlike Patricia, I can only see one road I've taken in life.

4.5/5 stars.

“She felt again the Bakelite of the receiver in her hand and heard Mark’s voice in her ear. “Now or never!”
Now or never, Trish or Pat, peace or war, loneliness or love?
She wouldn’t have been the person her life had made her if she could have made any other answer.”

——————
Recommended by: Algernon

[John Mauro · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is published at Before We Go Blog.

My Real Children is a unique and thought-provoking science fiction/alternate history novel by Jo Walton that has stuck with me for years.

The book opens with an elderly Patricia Cowan confused about her life. She has memory problems and seems to recall two different versions of her life, with two different families and two different sets of children. Who are her real children?

My Real Children flashes back to her childhood before World War II and the events leading up to a marriage proposal from Mark, who demands a “now or never” response.

My Real Children then bifurcates into two sets of alternating chapters. In one set of chapters, Patricia chooses to marry Mark. Her marriage is miserable, as her only purpose in life seems to be to give birth and raise children. In the alternate timeline, Patricia rejects Mark’s proposal and leads a much happier life with a different partner and a different set of children.

In both sets of alternating chapters, we are given information about world events, which follow very different paths. In one timeline, the world is devastated by nuclear war. In the other, the world is much more peaceful, and science and technology have made much greater advances.

I love the little tidbits of alternate history that Jo Walton includes in both sets of chapters throughout My Real Children. For example, when she mentions President Kennedy, along one timeline it’s actually President Robert F. Kennedy rather than John F. Kennedy.

In the final chapter of My Real Children, the two timelines have essentially converged and brought us back to the novel’s opening, with a confused and elderly Patricia trying to make sense of what is real and what is not.

I love the concept of this book, which draws on the quantum mechanical principle of superposition. Basically, a quantum particle takes all possible pathways simultaneously, and the reality we observe is a superposition of all those possible realities. Jo Walton is taking that concept from quantum mechanics and applying it to a human life.

Jo Walton also considers the impact that each of us has on the course of world events. Even small perturbations can lead to major changes in the course of world history. For example, what if the Cuban Missile Crisis actually led to a nuclear attack against Miami? What if RFK had never been assassinated? Small perturbations can lead to major changes at a global scale. Jo Walton captures that beautifully in My Real Children.

On the downside, the writing is a bit stilted, especially the dialogue. The discussion of world events during the alternating chapters can feel rather forced and unnatural. This was especially noticeable during my recent reread.

Despite these flaws, My Real Children is a highly worthwhile read. I definitely recommend this for anyone who prefers a more subtle kind of sci-fi.

Buddy read with Sofia!

[Cecily]

Giving up after 70 pages, which is about 20%.

Promising?

I have GR friends whose tastes often overlap with mine who have enjoyed this. (I’m not blaming them; merely puzzled.)

I like the premise. When Patricia decides whether to accept a marriage proposal, her life bifurcates into two versions: one where she accepts, and one where she doesn't. The two women/versions, Trisha and Pat, live very different lives, in rather different worlds (I gather that JFK is assassinated in one but not the other), told in alternating chapters. I read the first of each before giving up.

The book starts well, with a chapter that sensitively portrays elderly Patricia's confusion as she tries to disentangle conflicting memories of both lives and resist the subtle indignities of living in a care home, where she's assumed to have dementia.

Walton's themes are appealing, too: demonstrating the limits of women’s opportunities immediately post-WW2, and how to overcome or ignore them. Along the way, it explores religion, faith, and sexuality.

Nope

The good points are not enough.
The writing is dire.

It went sharply downhill at the second chapter and stayed there through Patricia's childhood, teens, university days, and beyond. The narration sounded both unconvincing and clichéd.

Patricia studied and then teaches English literature, which makes the leaden prose grate even more.

Her passing acquaintance with famous figures (Tolkien, Wittgenstein, Turing) felt like childish name-dropping, though it’s possible they play a more significant role in the plot later on.

In her third year at Oxford, Patricia consciously tries to overcome her shyness. And she just does. In the space of a paragraph. It’s a recurring aspect of the storytelling.

Chapters often start with a list of things that happened, formatted as a paragraph. One sentence each. No elaboration, little connection, and even less emotion.

It reads like revision notes or something written for adults learning to read English.

A typical example, that was my tipping point:

“Lorna and Patty began to row together weekly, and Lorna would sometimes invite Patty to parties, and she would sometimes go.”

The only thing preventing me throwing it, hard, at the wall, was that I treat books as sacred objects. Even bad ones.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I'm going to allow myself a completely biased review. I'm going to be utterly, shamelessly gonzo.

Just a warning, though: This is mostly a character study. Only the end proffers up a choice.

The rest of the time, we're given to enjoy two characters who are the same woman, Pat and Tricia, who both live in completely different realities and who make very different choices, but she they later begin to bleed together into one consciousness, but only later in life.

Sound like it's up your alley? There's very little action besides living a life or two, full of happiness and unhappiness, tragedies and triumphs, and, as the title implies, a lot of children.

So what is this novel, then? It's deceptively simple and oh so horribly complex at the same time. From the surface, it's utterly charming and a perfect joy to read, letting us see different sides of not just Pat/Tricia, but so many other people as well, surprising us with the sheer multitude of directions that any of us could have taken at any point, if things were just a little bit different.

Like the ideas that a more permissible social world could exist and lead naturally to higher technological progress, or how a more repressed world could paradoxically promote wider peace, nothing is entirely clear-cut, but it was great to see our world butt-up against another with moon colonies and an actual Mars mission by today's date.

Don't get me wrong. This novel isn't precisely an alternate history novel. There are background elements of it, but the real importance is all character-based. :) She isn't important, so she says, but I choose to read the novel in a slightly different way.

Under the surface, I see a lot of implications and near-wish fulfillment, an alternate and glorious escape from some of the less-talked about horrors of our world: Agism, age-related memory problems, the assumption that older people can go crazy based on an outside view, but perhaps it's all MUCH different in reality. Maybe those old people are only behaving that way because they're combining completely different realities and getting confused, naturally, because they both happened.

It's so beautiful. It's revolutionary. Hell, I may not look at another old person the same way again. Because... WHAT IF???? Amazing. Cool. YAY!

This may be a wonderful character study of a novel, full of so much coolness and real people, but more than that, it's doing something only the very best SF can accomplish.

It surprises and makes us wonder.

So after all this, I'm telling you, dear reader, that this book KICKS BUTT! :) :) :)

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jo Walton’s books always seem to come out around 3.5 stars for me: I like them, but not as much as I want to. I keep coming back because she is a good writer, and because, unlike most fantasy authors, she has a talent for telling a story in one book without padding, and for telling a unique story every time. That holds true here, though again my response was lukewarm.

Patricia Cowan is a very old woman with dementia, but her symptoms go beyond the expected: she remembers two distinct lives, two different partners, two sets of children – who both come to visit her in two different nursing homes. This book follows her throughout both of her lives: through her childhood, to the point of divergence in 1949 (when she accepts a proposal of marriage, or doesn’t), and then through alternating chapters in two increasingly different worlds. There are actually two alternate histories here – one a more peaceful and accepting version of 20th century history, the other more violent and ugly. The history plays out in the background, however, in asides while our protagonist goes through her life as either Pat or Trish.

This is a story told largely in summary, as it tries to capture all important events in two different lives in just over 300 pages. In some ways that’s a strength, as Walton captures the scope of two entire lives with relatively few words. The children in particular come vividly to life with just a few deft strokes. The way the two lives unfold in counterpoint is clever and well-done, and for narrative summary, the story manages to be quite compelling. On the other hand, this technique also distances the reader from the characters, a problem particularly evident in both of Patricia’s relationships. Her husband, Mark, is an awful person with no redeeming qualities (the best that can be said of him is that he doesn’t actually hit her). We’re told his conversation on their first meeting is scintillating, but we don’t see that; what we do see is all warning signs and no charm, so it’s hard to imagine why anyone would marry him. It’s almost as if Walton herself had divorced the guy, and was unwilling to give him any credit whatsoever. Meanwhile her partner, Bee, is a great person with no bothersome qualities, and it’s hard to say anything about their relationship except that it’s apparently perfect.

And sometimes the summary is rushed to the point of improbable omissions in the characters' lives: for instance, Pat and Bee don't talk about their prior sexual experience (or lack thereof) until several years into their relationship? This seems to happen not because of any reticence on their part, but rather because from the author's standpoint, they've only been together for a chapter.

As for the alternate history, I found it unsatisfying, particularly when the book indicates that the path the world takes depends on Patricia’s decision. If one obscure woman’s choice to marry or not is meant to determine the fate of the world within a few short years, I want to be shown how and why, not just have all explanations waved away with the words “butterfly effect.”

So I am left where I so often am with Jo Walton’s books: the writing is good, the ideas are great, and the story and characters have a lot of potential but would have been more effective with more development. As is, this isn’t bad, but for alternate lives and possibilities I would recommend Life After Life before this – a much longer book, but for me a more memorable and satisfying one.

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jo Walton has won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards a couple of years ago, for her novel Among Others, a curious genre novel where the fantasy and science-fiction elements of the story were kept to minimum. The appeal was more in the character study and in the ways literature can influence and enrich a life. I will not be surprised if this new book from the author repeats the performance, and makes a good showing at the award ceremonies. The science-fiction elements are once again kept to a minimum and subtly deployed, making the character and social study more important than the speculative ideas. Instead of a teenager dealing with a broken family and with alienation within a foreign culture, we are following this time one woman over her entire lifetime, from her childhood in pre-War England to her last years in the very near future (2015). The novel is actually a memoir, a biopic of a fictional character, a long series of flashbacks. What makes the story special is the fact that Patricia remembers not one, but two parallel lives, both equally convincing, both 'real' to her. How can she tell which one is false when she remembers so many details, when her children from both realities visit her in the asylum? She is VC, meaning very confused, a condition explained by a degenerative disease inherited from her mother. But there may be more to the parallel lives, and the reader needs to be patient, to follow Patricia / Patsy / Patty / Tricia / Trish / Pat through long decades of both pain and happiness, through marriages and travels and child rearing, before the mystery of the two realities can be explained.

She had made choices. Thinking about that she felt the strange doubling, the contradictory memories, as if she had two histories that both led her to this point, this nursing home.

Without giving too many spoilers away, it pretty much boils down to choices, to the debate between predestination and free-will. Patricia's two paths in life are the result not only of her social conditions (education, temperament, affluence) but also of the choices she made at key points during her lifetime, with the most important one revealed in the opening chapters. She must decide whether she will marry or not Mark, the first man to ask her. With the major focus of the novel on traditional versus modern marriage, on women's emancipation, on gender roles and sexual liberty - the book addresses issues of a more general interest than expected for a genre novel, but SF fans will still be intrigued by the subtle changes in the recent history most of us are familiar with, changes that affect both of the fictional lives Patricia reminisces about. In one timeline, the world sees a steeper descent into armed conflict in international relations, including deployment of nuclear bombs, and a more pronounced escalation of terrorism and intransigence. In the second timeline, peaceful demonstrations and more level-headed leaders avoid the catastrophic destruction and usher in a more collaborative UN and more personal freedoms, more tolerance towards people with different sexual proclivities. Why Walton has developed these two alternate histories becomes clear only in the final pages when Patricia puts in balance personal happiness with larger social equality, peace and a sustainable future. What would she choose if she were given the chance to start all over? Her own wellbeing, or a better world?

The novel was a surprisingly fast read and kept me interested in the twists and turns of Patricia's two lives, despite being basically plotless and concerned throughout with domestic tasks and personal crises. Like the previous novel I've mentioned, there are many literary and artistic references, an insider look at the academic lifestyle at Cambridge and Oxford and numerous references to Italy and the Renaissance, especially about Florence, where Pat spends all her holidays in one of her past lives. Her fascination may be explained as a deep thirst for beauty and for personal development, an appeal for the reconsideration of our system of values and for a new Renaissance, a new age of humanism and artistic integrity. Here's a conversation taking place in the galleries of the Pitti Palazzo:

- It makes you realize they were just people, people who were excited about art and making things and sharing it with other people who cared about it.
- I wish people felt like that now. I mean it's fashionable to be cynical and jaded about everything, but when I look at the passion those Renaissance people had, that clarity of ... of caring about things, I envy them.

There is such a wealth of emotion, of passion, of depth in Patricia, that I could easily imagine the novel being three times as long and still keep me interested in knowing her and sharing in her experiences. Some of her epiphanies give me a feeling of deja-vu, of thoughts and convictions I have arrived myself through my own journeys. For example, Pat is very religious, yet she distances herself from organized church and prefers a more intimate dialogue, direct and unconstrained by dogma:

By the sea she always felt that God loved her and cared about her. She returned refreshed and ready to see the best in everyone.

I could have easily given a full five rating for the novel, but I should also acknowledge that I had a couple of issues with the presentation:

- There is so much ground to cover (more than eigth decades) that the narration, especially in the second half, becomes a synopsis, a sketch of events, a rush of years instead of days and months, introducing and passing over the most dramatic events in a human life sometimes in only a couple of paragraphs. To compound the issue, as she advances in age, Patricia's immediate family and her circle of friends expand exponentially. We are required to keep track of seven of eight children in two different timelines, each with their own love interests, marriages, children and intimate friends. The two alternate realities and the chaarcters belonging to each of them start to melt together and to confuse the inattentive reader. The move may well be a deliberate one, used to illustrate first the rushing of time everybody experiences as they get older and secondly the brain degeneracy that Patricia inherited from her mother.

- Sometimes the message feels more important than the actual story, with the characters just excuses needed to illustrate the position the author takes on hot button issues. I often got the feeling that instead of a debate about the degradation of traditional family, the dangers of domestic abuse and the marginalization of same sex couples, I am reading a manifesto, that I am pushed forcibly into one position by the clear condemnation of some atitudes and by the similar strong endorsement of the opposite view. As with my previous complaint, I may be wrong, especially if I try to demonstrate that Patricia is a radical, inflexible and irrational person.

The last quote I saved is just a fragment of a poem Patricia recites at one point, one that is probably very well known in the Anglo-Saxon world (for me it was just a vague recollection from a long ago lecture). Walton I think wants to encourage us to live our lives fully while we still can. On behalf of Patricia, I would add also that we should live our lives making sure that others also have a fair chance at happiness, because:

But at my back I always hear
time's winged chariot hurrying near.
And yonder all before us lie
deserts of vast eternity.

[Phrynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off so well and held so much promise in the first chapter. How could one person be able to remember living two totally different lives? What could have caused this to happen? Were both lives real or was one of them imagined? Are there in fact parallel worlds? It could have been a really good book if the author had offered a satisfactory answer to these questions. Sadly she chickened out at the end and left the reader hanging. Apart from that the concept was good and the two parallel stories were somewhat interesting although they became tedious in the middle. This book is categorised as science fiction but the link to that genre is tenuous at best. I probably would have enjoyed it more if Ihad not been expecting something SciFi- ish. It would be better classified as contemporary fiction.

[Allison Hurd · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things we who read copious amounts of speculative fiction say is "my god, it's always spaceship captains, kings, and high mages (even if they don't know it yet) where are the regular folk?"

This is scifi for the regular folk.

It's "low" scifi in that what happens is totally plausible and relies more on humanitarian sciences like sociology, politics, and medical policy. But I think it's important, because it asks what kind of future we would want. WE, the most of us, the everyman, who isn't an astronaut or a politician or researcher. We, who are raising kids, pursuing careers, teaching the minds of the next generation, and just hoping to make the best out of this life that we can.

CONTENT WARNING: marital rape, domestic abuse, AIDS, queerphobia, loss of a child, dementia, loss of a parent, cancer, misogyny, religion, war including nuclear war.

Things to love:

-The surreality. The cleverest thing about this book for me is how it messed with my own perceptions. Neither of these realities mirror the one I live in, which made it jarring in a way that I imagine was intended to mimic the confusion our main character feels in remembering her "lives."

-Patricia. A complex woman in both her lives, and relatable.

-The choices. While I found the packaging a little trite, honestly both of these worlds and lives sound both terrible and beautiful to me. How perfectly human of it.

-The writing. It's Jo Walton. It's confident, vulnerable, astute.

Why not five stars?:

-Mark. Throw the whole man out. Honestly, what a piece of shit in all worlds.

-The end. I see what Jo was going for, but I think it needed a bit more finessing. One of the things I personally love about books is when I can tell it's achieved its own goal, and I don't think that happened here, quite.

A beautiful literary look at what makes a life, and how we as people experience changes in our society, be they social webs, war, drug advancements or space stations.

[Nicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, first off: I am completely, utterly biased. Jo sent me a copy to review, I had my own pre-ordered copy several days before the book released, I love her work in general, and she's been great to me. This doesn't speak to me in the same way Among Others did, but all the same, it's wonderful. I love the way the two timelines are handled, and I love the way that last chapter brings things back into alignment. I love that I was thinking all along that I wasn't sure about the narration, and yet somehow it worked and brought me to tears.

The thing with the narration is, this is a short book to hold the sum of two lives. So at times the narration seems to summarise things that could have been interesting expanded. I wasn't sure for parts of it whether the emotional impact would still be there, but it is. In some places, it fits perfectly the way things happen: matter of fact, sudden, without announcing themselves first. I was thinking about whether I'd want it to be expanded, but I don't think I would. It would take away from the structure, the careful balance Jo builds.

I love the fact that this book is jammed full of people. Gay people, out and closeted both; unconventional relationships and love that doesn't colour between the lines; families, built and chosen; people with disabilities who conform to no stereotype; pacifists and campaigners; scientists; women making their way in a sexist world and pushing the boundaries... All of them are handled with respect and care for their stories.

The whole plot... I don't know how much is too much to give away, here. The final chapter just makes everything slide into place and come clear. You've got Pat/Trish living two separate lives, each with their own kinds of happiness and fulfillment. You think it's going to be simple to choose which one you'd prefer for her, and then if you just tilt to the head you can see why that wouldn't be the right choice.

And I don't know if anyone else felt this, coming to the last page, but I don't actually know which version of herself Patricia chooses. It looks like a straight-up choice between personal happiness and wider well-being, but the whole book shows us the importance of tiny actions by a single person. Trish is a person who takes care of other people, who sacrifices her own well-being for that: does Patricia choose to follow her path, because that's part of who she is? Pat is a person who focuses on her family, who loves art, who makes the world a better place, but who is ultimately quite insular: does Patricia choose to follow Pat, because that insularity is part of her too? Saying that she couldn't make any other choice only makes sense after she's chosen.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have waffled back and forth between giving this book 4 or 5 stars—so let’s call it 4.5 stars. It really spoke to me—I loved the way Walton was so honest about the details of women’s lives and how true, at least to my life, it rang. What a great use of alternate history and different time lines! I have often speculated on how different life would be if different choices had been made through the course of my life. Thankfully, I’m pretty happy with how this particular time line has ended up for me, but I could see wondering about other realities if I were in an unhappy place.
I also appreciated the fact that neither time line that Pat/Trish inhabited was our time line—history was different from what I know in both situations and that somehow that added to the authentic feel of the book.

Plus, I find the central premise of the book to be so true—small decisions, as well as large ones, can change the course of a life. If I hadn’t gone to that particular workshop, then I wouldn’t have met this person, I wouldn’t have been recruited to a particular position and I wouldn’t have the same wonderful circle of friends that I currently enjoy. If I had chosen a different university to attend, I probably wouldn’t be living where I currently am with my current job. So, if there are alternate time lines, we each probably create many more than two! Life would bifurcate so often that it would become tremendously intricate.

In both time lines, Pat/Trish has a lot to cope with—all while being told that her female needs and desires are second class to those of men and/or straight people. The importance of friends can’t be emphasized enough—I have often said of my life, men come and go, but my women friends are the bedrock of a stable happy life. Mind you, I have also observed that although I have never missed having a husband, I could really use a wife to provide the support services that men rely on, sometimes without appreciation (and yes, Trisha’s husband Mark, I am thinking of you as I write this!). I think the current rash of sexual violence/harassment cases that we have experienced here in Canada in the last several weeks reveals that male entitlement is alive & well—but we do seem to be recognizing it, naming it, and starting to deal with it. It gives me hope that the next generation of women will have less of this crap to deal with.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Supposedly science fiction (as indicated by the UFO sticker on the spine of my library book), this never lived up to its first chapter. It could have been so great! Alas. Tonally, it felt less like Life After Life (which was great) and Never Let Me Go (which handled subtle sci fi in a deliciously creepy manner) and more like the preachy, morally heavyhanded Christian novels I read in my adolescence. Additionally, the whole thing read like the world's longest Christmas letter, or as another reviewer put it, an outline of a book rather than an actual book. And the science part of the fiction was... essentially nonexistent. I kept reading in the hopes that something would happen to justify, explain or expand the events of the first chapter, and it never did. So disappointed.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

OH. MY. GOD. WHY DID NONE OF YOU MAKE ME READ THIS BOOK SOONER???

I’ve previously read two of Jo Walton’s books. The first, Among Others , was a Hugo-nominated, Nebula-winning novel that I enjoyed but didn’t love. The second, Tooth and Claw , was a more straightforward story which was basically “what if Regency England was intelligent dragons” and, as such, was a delightfully clever romp of a book. My Real Children is a slow burn of simmering something else and it blew my mind backwards and forwards across time.

It’s 2015 and Patricia is in a nursing home, suffering from dementia. Her mind alternates between two sets of memories. In one timeline, she marries a man named Mark shortly after finishing her schooling after World War II. She has four children with him and a very unhappy marriage, although along the way she discovers her own ambitions and makes a life for herself. In the other timeline, she doesn’t marry Mark; she travels to Italy, writes popular guidebooks, falls in love with another woman, and they end up raising three children together. Tragedy strikes their lives in a few ways, but they get through it, as a family.

Walton’s use of a parallel universe structure isn’t unique. A very long time ago I read The Post-Birthday World , which does a similar thing, albeit in the present rather than traversing past worldlines. Walton’s use of it is quite divergent; after Patricia decides to marry or not marry Mark, her life changes rapidly. I call it a slow burn because it took me a while to understand what Walton was doing with these parallel lines and where they were going.

At first I was firmly on the anti-Mark train. The guy’s a rapist jerk, and “Tricia” endures an awful first few years of marriage. In contrast, her independence as Pat, the way she develops a career and a wider social circle, definitely looks more attractive. Her love with Bea is easy, even when it gets hard later in life. And there’s the rub: pretty soon, Walton drops the other shoe. Tricia’s life turns around as she carves out more agency for herself and develops independence as well, including meaningful relationships with her adult children. Meanwhile, Pat and Bea have their shares of setbacks, from questions around powers of attorney and agency to Bea’s disability and the state of the world around them. Eventually it’s clear that neither of Patricia’s possible lives is superior to the other. It’s not a question of which life is better but an exploration of the myriad ways in which we encounter happiness and unhappiness as we go through life.

This is a slow burn because it’s character-driven, heavy with narration and description of Patricia’s life and lighter on dialogue or action. It is a meditation on life. Either of Patricia’s lives alone would make for a worthy novel, but it’s their juxtaposition that enhances them into a masterpiece of storytelling. I read this over the weekend after a very draining week. I wanted something cathartic, something meditative—and My Real Children was exactly that. Sometimes, when my own life is feeling small or difficult, reading about the difficulties of other people’s lives is just what I need. I guess it’s a form of recharging my empathy and commiserating with these fictional personalities…. Anyway, there’s something about Walton’s writing, the way she tells Patricia’s stories, that really touched my emotions. I found myself laughing and crying at various junctures over the smallest of life events. As the years turned into decades, I found myself getting to know Trish and Pat intimately; I felt connected to them.

As I mentioned above, both timelines have their shares of ups and downs. This is what Walton is really getting at with My Real Children: she’s reminding us that there is no way to live your life without regrets or setback. Even if you can go back and do it again, there’s no way to “win” at life. You can always have happiness, but you can also always have sadness and regret; that’s just the way it is. What really matters are the relationships you develop with the people in your life. Who do you love, and who loves you? To what lengths will you go to care for those around you when they are ailing, infirm, or upset?

This past year has been somewhat tumultuous for me in terms of caring for others. During this time, I’ve become so very grateful for the support I receive from my own friends. Reading about Patricia’s lives made me think about my own friendships and the people in my life who are so important to me. Yes, my life can be difficult sometimes—but here I am, 29 years old, with a house of my own and friends who text and call me daily, a friend who watches Doctor Who with me every Sunday, friends who check up on me and tell me I’m enough. These are the things that make the darker times easier to bear. These are what add to my pile of good things (my favourite moment of Doctor Who ever).

We could spend a good amount of time discussing the extent to which Patricia’s alternative lives are “real.” It’s possible that her two sets of memories are entirely a result of her dementia, of course (kind of like the doubt inherent in Woman on the Edge of Time ). Alternatively, Patricia could indeed be remembering two actual parallel lives among many others. Perhaps that’s what dementia is! And, as she observes in the coda, these memories are interesting because there were so many divergences beyond ones probably caused by her decision to marry/not marry Mark. Both worlds are distinct from this one of ours as well.

This book is vanilla enough in its presentation and marketing that it might actually escape the speculative fiction ghetto in some places and attract a wider audience. I think people should give science fiction a try more in general, but if they pick up My Real Children not really knowing what it’s about, I don’t mind that either. This is the first book I’ve read in a while that I think almost everyone might want to read at some point. It’s moving and heartfelt and beautiful. Definitely one of the best books I’ve read all year—one of those books, like some of Ursula K. Le Guin’s work, that are just so beautiful they hurt.

[Apatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely love Jo Walton’s Among Others, a wonderful, heartwarming novel, with the added bonus of being a love letter of sorts for the sci-fi/fantasy genre. I would have read many more of Ms. Walton’s books if not for the synopses of them which do not seem so appealing to me. Still, I thought it was about time I read something else by her having declared to be a fan after reading just one book. My Real Children is one of her highly-rated novels and the synopsis seemed interesting.

As it turned out My Real Children is oddly sci-fi* (or fantasy) that does not read like sci-fi most of the time. The novel is more concerned with character study and human drama than futuristic tech and aliens (of which there are none). The premise of the book, in sci-fi term, is like a parallel worlds story, except there is no mention of parallel worlds in the narrative or any explanation of how such a situation came to be. The life of the protagonist Patricia suddenly bifurcates into two timelines or paths. This occurs when she makes a momentous decision to marry a man called Mark / and also not to marry him.

The narrative then alternately depicts her life and times of Pat in each reality. Initially, it seems that one reality is much happier than the other, which reminds me of this quote:

This sounds quite fantastical but in execution, this book reads very much like a mainstream novel. Mark turns out to be a terrible, callous, selfish, unloving man. In this “married life reality” Pat comes to be called “Trish” by her friends (no significant reason, just for easy identification purposes for the reader I imagine). Trish leads a miserable oppressive life with Mark for years but gradually develops the fortitude to counter his abuses and eventually manages to turn her life into a happier one, also helped along by having several mostly good, intelligent, and successful children, including a rock, and star scientist. In the alternate Pat is only called Pat, having wisely decided not to marry Mark she lives a much happier life, if rather unconventional life, with a female partner. This narrative strand explores the life of a gay couple, the acceptances and rejections they encounter for their domestic arrangement. However, Pat wants children and manages to have several, with the help of a very kind male friend. Pat becomes a successful author of travel guides, her children also grow up to be successful and talented. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes which makes her “married life” very difficult but in this reality she also has considerable fortitude and manages well against all odds.

I am both disappointed and satisfied with this book. As a sci-fi nerd looking for some mind-blowing flight of fancy I am disappointed. The two realities are mostly grounded in our real world’s mundanity, except for a few details like wars that never happened, research stations on the moon, and some strange geopolitical structures. However, these are mostly background details in a mostly grounded narrative. Fortunately, I am not a total philistine and I can recognize a good work of fiction when I read it. The book is beautifully written and the characters are extremely well developed. I came to care about Pat in both plotlines and felt quite moved by the end of the book. However, recommending this book is not a straightforward matter. I can't even say that if you love Jo Walton’s Hugo & Nebula award-winning Among Others you will love this because perhaps you won't. It depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking awesome sci-fi you should look elsewhere. However, if you are simply looking for a good book with believable characters, something you can emotionally connect with, and perhaps even ponder the meaning of life with, this may be just the thing.

* Wikipedia classifies My Real Children as fantasy, I’ll just go with sci-fi if you don’t mind.


The premise of this book is very similar to the 1998 movie Sliding Doors. Actually one of my favorites, the best Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance IMO.

Quotes:
“She remembered Kennedy being assassinated and she remembered him declining to run again after the Cuban missile exchange. They couldn’t both have happened, yet she remembered them both happening.”

“And they all kept asking me if I’d met Prince Charles and Princess Camilla—for Republicans they’re awfully keen on hearing about our royalty!”

[Megan Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it very strange that I've now read four Jo Walton books, and the one that won a Hugo is my least favourite of the four. It's not that it's bad, but it really wasn't a book that I loved. In contrast, the other three books are ones that practically have me picking my jaw up off the floor with how good they are. Tooth and Claw convinced me that I did want to read about Victorian dragons, Farthing made me shudder with the potential reality of the vision of a fascist Britain (I don't even know if I could bear to read it today), and now My Real Children just knocked my socks off with how beautifully written and rich it is.

Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Jemppu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous, crushing, and poignant portrayal of lives as they transpire. Wonderfully realized moments of life's happinesses and injustices, interlaid together in an unpredictable way to make you look twice.

Got me captivated, and fall in love with Walton's authentic, compassionate voice. Beautiful.


_____
There were reading updates.

[Jill Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was easily a four star review. Until the last chapter, which was beyond trite. I'm not sure what the opposite of stick the landing is, but that's what the ending did.

Patricia lives two lives: a happy one in a horrible world that is like ours if everything had been a little worse and an unhappy one in a wonderful world that is like ours if everything had been a little better. But both her lives end in dementia -- very well written -- and she is not entirely sure which one is real, only that they are split based on a decision she made many years earlier.

Eventually she realises that she can choose which world is real, and is amazed that one person's answer to a marriage proposal has the power to make such a difference in the world, butterfly effect kind of stuff. Could it be that the cost of peace is her own happiness? She must choose one world to die in, and that will be the real world!

She could not have made any other decision about which world to choose. THE END.

I appreciated both Sliding Doors and The Lady and the Tiger, but the world did not need a mashup.

The book deserved a far, far better ending.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, time-travel and the multiverse! What would our lives be like if we hadn't made that one pivotal decision (repeat ad nauseam)? It seems like there have been several books about this in the last year, with Life After Life getting the most hype. Since Jo Walton writes such clever science fiction/fantasy novels, I thought this might be great - but unfortunately, it ends up being far more mundane than interesting. The writing bumps it up to three stars, but other than that, it's very skippable.

The two parallel stories that make up this book cover almost a century and are tied up in just 320 pages, which makes it difficult to really get to know Trish and Pat, the two alternate versions of Patricia. (The name conceit was very artfully done and much appreciated.) My main complaint about Life After Life was that the various versions of Ursula weren’t very similar to one another; it wasn’t interesting to play a huge version of “what if?” when the endgames were so very different. Here, Trish and Pat can be recognized in one another, at least, but I wasn’t convinced that the differences between them were meaningful or interesting.

I think I would have enjoyed this more if the style hadn’t been so linear. The story begins with older Patricia, who isn’t sure if she is Pat or Trish - if she has three children or four - and then immediately jumps back to the beginning of Patricia’s life. This is my bias showing through, but I would have loved to see Patricia remembering these stories in the present, like Polly does in Fire and Hemlock. It would have grounded us more in the reason Patricia's remembering the stories, and perhaps given some more context to the ending.

And the ending! Actually, I'm not sure it could have been saved: it was so banal. The only thing that Jo Walton could come up with was that Patricia’s choice about Mark had made all the difference, and she has to choose which world to die in? Come on now. That came out of NOWHERE.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the threesomes. That's all I really have to say about that ...

Anyway, I’m not convinced that I’ve read a truly great literary fiction novel that deals with multiple lives in a believable and interesting way. It seems they’re in vogue now, though, so there’s always hope for the future.

[Amal El-Mohtar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewing this one for NPR. Very beautifully done but left me so sad.

Review is here: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/3121907...

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

If you’re expecting more of a sci-fi feel with this book because it’s written by a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author, then you’ll be disappointed.

In fact, this novel should probably not be classified as science fiction at all. I might have enjoyed it more if I’d known it was actually more like contemporary women’s fiction with a touch of fantasy.

Patricia Cowen is in a nursing home suffering from dementia. She can distinctly remember living two different lives at the same time, with two different partners; two different sets of children; and two very different worlds.

In one life cycle, she lives a more difficult, frustrating, unhappy existence in a world not so very different from the present day. In her parallel life, she experiences a much happier, more satisfying and fulfilling life, but in a world which has become much more dangerous and repressive, with frequent nuclear exchanges and all of the attendant problems that go with them.

She can trace the beginning of living these two simultaneous lives to a specific moment: when she is presented with the choice of whether or not to accept a marriage proposal.

It’s a thought-provoking premise, and I did enjoy the author’s unfolding of Patricia’s two different lives.

The characters were all succinctly yet vividly drawn, and the descriptions of the daily tasks that constitute most women’s lives and the issues they deal with were very authentic.

It also made me reflect on how all of us are affected by the seemingly insignificant choices we make, and how our lives might have been different if we had made other choices.

However, the ending left me cold. The last chapter implies that Patricia’s decision to accept or decline the marriage proposal somehow influences the whole world:

What if by marrying Mark she had tipped the world into peace and prosperity? Perhaps the price of the happiness of the world was her own happiness? . . . Could she slide the worlds closer together? Get rid of wars? Or would one world end and the other go on? . . . She had made a choice already, one choice that counted among the myriad choices of her life. She had made it not knowing where it led. Could she make it again, knowing?”

If Patricia’s decision actually does affect the way the whole world turns out – and if this book is ostensibly a science fiction novel -- then I think the author owes us more of an explanation of how and why.

Millions of people make choices like this every day. Why did this specific woman’s seemingly innocuous decision affect the whole future of the rest of the planet? I was expecting more of a “sci-fi” answer — maybe involving quantum mechanics or something like that.

Instead, we get this ending:

“Now or never, Trish or Pat, peace or war, loneliness or love?

She wouldn’t have been the person her life had made her if she could have made any other answer.”

There’s some vague reference to “the butterfly effect,” but that explanation didn’t do it for me.

(If you want a much more believable story of how seemingly negligible decisions can affect the future, read Stephen King’s “11/22/63.”)

You may still enjoy this book if you approach it not as science fiction, but as a character-driven study of women’s lives.

[Jamie Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this - it reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s novel Life After Life, although the scope is smaller.

It begins with Patricia Cowen as an elderly, confused woman in a nursing home who has memories of living two very different lives. Her timeline split when she made the critical decision to marry - or not marry - her college boyfriend. One choice led to a life of misery and repression; the other led to a life of love and adventure.

For a while I was irritated by the stark contrast between her two timelines, which are almost caricatures of two lifestyle choices. Then I was puzzled as to why the author chose to radically alter the history of the world in both timelines. In the very last chapter the point of this is made clear, although it doesn’t completely work for me because there is no reasonable explanation, other than the “butterfly flapping its wings” conceit, for why Patricia’s choice would cause such massive changes in the world. But even though it didn’t make sense, I liked the idea that she could choose happiness for herself in a world plagued by violence, or accept personal misery in exchange for a world at peace.

The writing is weak in the beginning, especially at the point where Patricia makes her fateful decision. Then the details of two entire lifetimes are spilled out in a 300-page novel, which means there is a fair amount of summary and exposition and the secondary characters are not well fleshed-out. I liked the concept very much, though, and for the most part I like Walton’s writing, even if her plot choices don’t always suit me.

[Bloodorange · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise is interesting, but the execution does not do it justice.

There is a good and promising moment early on, but once we have Pat and Bee and Michael in one place, it starts getting downhill; the book fails to deliver, plot- and style-wise. On the plus side, I appreciated the portrayal of dementia and how the protagonist coped with it.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an alt-history novel by Jo Walton, which presents a very unusual twist to the genre. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for January 2024 at SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group. The book was published in 2014 and was nominated for several SFF awards, including among others, a Locus Award Nominee for Best SF Novel, World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel and James Tiptree Jr. Award. She won the latter (a tie with The Girl in the Road). I usually like the author’s SFF and non-fiction and this novel is good even if a bit uneven.

The story starts in the present time (the year 2015) with the protagonist-narrator Patricia Cowan living her last days in a nursing home, for she is VC or ‘very confused’, constantly forgetting what has happened but what is worse, sometimes recalling what couldn’t have happened. For she equally poorly recalls both of her lives as ‘her’ life, even if it is impossible: Sometimes she knew with solid certainty that she had four children, and five more stillbirths: nine times giving birth in floods of blood and pain, and of those, four surviving. At other times she knew equally well that she had two children, both born by caesarean section late in her life after she had given up hope.

After that initial setup, the reader follows Patricia’s life from the 1930s through the WW2 and beyond. At some moment her story splits, and now we follow Tricia and Pat (both shortenings of her name) and her ever broadly different lives to the point which is depicted at the start.

Unlike most alt-histories, which usually ask “What if this has/hasn’t happened, what the world would have looked like?”, this is much more a biography of the protagonist, who isn’t a country leader or other kind of bigwig, but ‘just’ a housewife, a teacher, a writer… the world changes, but for her it is chiefly information from media, which she doesn’t follow closely.

Both of her lives are interesting, but in the last quarter of the book her offspring and their kids are just too much info to follow (for me), which may be intentional, to imbue in readers the feeling of losing the thread of what followed what so that we not only read about Patricia but feel ourselves in her shoes.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's start with the publisher's press release for My Real Children; "perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife and Ursula K Le Guin ...". So really, that should rule me out. I haven't read Life After Life, I hated The Time Traveller's Wife and I've never heard of Ursula K Le Guin. The press release goes on to say ... " writes science fiction and fantasy novels ....". Well, that's me out again. When anyone asks me what I like to read, I always say anything except science fiction and fantasy. So why did I read this book? First; I love the cover, second; the blurb is fascinating, and third; I didn't read the full press release before I started the book. I'm glad that I didn't because I absolutely adored this book. It's fabulous, I love it, and now I want to read everything else that Jo Walton has written.

For me, this is a story that is unique and original and beautiful. It's intriguing and it's confusing, yet it is filled with emotion and passion and characters who are forward-thinking and beyond the norm, yet are realistically portrayed.

The opening chapter finds Patricia Cowan in a nursing home, she's old and confused, some days she is very confused. The rest of the book is made up of Patricia's memories, yet her memories are not of one life and one set of children, but of two women, Trish and Pat, with two lives and two sets of children. Trish and Pat tell their own individual, very different stories in alternate chapters and this starts after Patricia makes the biggest decision of her life.

That really is the crux of this story; how one decision, one answer, can shape a whole lifetime, and the lives of those who come next. How generations of one family can be formed because of what one single person decided to do.

Who is Patricia? Is she Trish, or is she Pat? Was she married with a family, a supply teacher and homemaker, or was she a bohemian travel writer, fighting for her rights and determined to live her life as she wants to? Both of these women have a wonderfully intricate story to tell and Jo Walton has so cleverly created two hugely different lives.

Yes, there is a dash of science fiction and fantasy in there, but it's not aliens and spaceships (although a trip to the Moon does feature), this is more Orwellian than that with glimpses of a possible future, and of things that could have happened, but didn't.

It all sounds terribly confusing doesn't it? It really isn't, it's a portrait of a woman who made a decision, but it is also a portrait of that woman making the opposite decision.

Jo Walton writes with subtlety and passion. She challenges the reader, she makes the reader think about the consequences of decisions made, she poses questions, she tackles age-old issues. She does all of this quite beautifully. If this is science-fiction/fantasy, then I'm converted.

[Carly Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quick read in the alternate history read that is light on the alternate history angle. Walton plays with the alternate history genre but offering not just one but two alternate histories both versions of the same woman's life.

Patricia Cowan is suffering from dementia in 2015. In her nursing home, she has memories of herself in two different past lives. Her early childhood and adulthood are the same, but a fateful decision in 1949 of whether to marry her boyfriend or not leads her down two diverging paths. In one reality she marries Mark, has a difficult loveless marriage as a repressed housewife before finally divorcing and achieving some self-actualization in the 1970s. In this world, Tricia never really has a deep love or happy home life although her children provide some bright spots. The world gradually becomes more peaceful and socialistic. In the other reality, she (called Pat here) does not marry Mark but visits Italy and becomes a travel writer. She later falls in love with a woman and has a happy home life with three children. In this world, there is much more world strife with frequent nuclear attacks and disease.

Walton moves forward in the time and in the lives of Pat and Tricia in short chapters that encompass numerous characters. Some things are similar in both worlds--Pat/Tricia is a teacher, she has a son who is a musician, her mother dies of dementia, and she herself also slowly succumbs to dementia.

I have enjoyed Walton's other alternate histories but found this one severely lacking. It was hard to get to known the personalities of Pat/Tricia's numerous children and their spouses; often major life changes were summed up in one paragraph. I found the characters of Pat and her wife, Bee, to be smug and their declarations of love and musings on their wonderful family and how lucky they were to be annoying rather than touching. It was funny how casually Tricia's son, George, would jet off to the moon for his research work. The sex scenes with Pat, Bee and the biological father of their children, Michael, were cringe worthy. A lot of the alternate history was lightly mentioned and the main focus was the personal life of the main character which is only somewhat affected by alternate world events. Readers who like alternate history may not find enough alternate events or the exploration of how the events effect the characters to enjoy this. Readers who like domestic drama or women's fiction with a slight twist might enjoy this more but there are too many characters and the alternate history (especially the moon stuff) comes off as silly or could confuse readers who didn't know that it was an alternate history before they started reading.

[First Second Books]

Patricia remembers living two lives – with two different sets of children, two different ways that the world could have gone. And it doesn’t just seem to be because she’s old and living in an assisted living facility – on different days, she gets visits from children who don’t exist on the other days.

Both of her lives went very differently, but Patricia is a wonderful character in both of them – and a fascinating (and different in both iterations) window into ways that the last century could have gone.

This book is really amazing, you guys. It reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s LIFE AFTER LIFE, but with the idea of the multiple-lives problematized – if you actually had agency in that kind of situation, and you had to make a choice, do you choose the world where you’re happier? Or the world where life is better for everyone?

[Emmeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is the second Jo Walton book I’ve read and enjoyed, with many (though not all) of the same strengths and weaknesses as the first (Among Others).

Walton is an unabashed genre writer of science fiction/fantasy and (apparently) women’s fiction, and I’ve also read some of her essays on craft, which are thoughtful and interesting. I enjoyed her description of literary fiction as a necklace with a big statement pendant at the end, while sci-fi requires a more symmetrical structure with a great big bead every so often to keep reader attention.

She’s a novelist of ideas, however, and here she doesn’t let genre structure constraints get in the way of those ideas in this Sliding Doors-esque story. Shortly after the war, a woman must make a choice, to accept or refuse to get married immediately. Thereafter we follow the two versions of her life, each of which have their difficulties and pleasures, though these are very unevenly distributed. Patricia Cowan’s life story spins out against the backdrop of world events, but these are likewise not balanced. There is a world which more or less resembles ours, and there is a world where nuclear war becomes a reality (the bombs fall in faraway places, but the cancer is real). The question is, why are these worlds different?

Very confused in a nursing home, suffering from dementia, Patricia suspects that the difference might have been her all along, that despite her status as a normal woman, unheroic, unimportant, she had an ineffable effect on the world around her, joining her peace committees and nuclear disarmament groups, writing letters. This is rather a lovely twist on the whole story, and one that requires a choice to be made, a forswearing of one reality or the other.

Unlike Among Others which had a striking and unusual protagonist, this really is the story of two versions of one quite normal woman. The writing style is often flat, not in a boring way exactly, but in the sense that it sets out to narrate the facts of life with little adornment. It often felt like reading a lengthy obituary. Personally, I quite like reading obituaries, but this isn’t the book for the “show don’t tell” brigade.

There are thoughtful depictions of disability (Walton is herself disabled) and unconventional relationships, for lack of a better word. Sometimes motivations feel a bit too pure and altruistic. And minus half a point for mention of the bloody Butterfly Effect. But otherwise this is a wise and readable novel.

[Jacqie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jo Walton writes like a dream. Literally. When I read her books, I slip away into another reality and accept whatever strange thing that transpires as a matter of course. Walton usually doesn't build her books to a crescendo, but noodles around putting her earnest characters through whatever what-if framework she has imagined, revealing their day to day lives as she explores her themes.

In this book, the main character Pat or Trish (depending) finds that as she looks back at her past, she can remember two entirely different lives for herself. Not imagine, remember. She is suffering from dementia, and the first chapter is absolutely heartbreaking as it describes her trying to not cause any trouble, even though her whole world shifts with her memories.

I suppose we all play the what-if game sometimes, but Pat/Trish finds herself caught in a Schroedinger's box, not knowing until she opens her eyes in the morning which reality she'll find herself in. Either way, she is in a nursing home. But depending on what life she has landed in, her family- her children- are different because of her past choices. How can she ever choose a life, for all of them are her real children?

Walton then goes back and describes an unremarkable life for each past. Depending on whether or not she married, Pat/Trish was either a housewife who eventually became interested in politics or a travel writer who gave her heart to Florence. The world around her changed slightly too, one more menacing and frightening than the other. But as Pat/Trish lives through both possibilities, she finds that one learns to live with horror and pain.

What's Walton trying to say? I never know, and I suppose that's why I couldn't give five stars. I'm not even sure she's saying anything, but possibly just playing with ideas and giving us readers something to think about. Her characters are always achingly human, if somewhat nicer than average. Her books lightly gloss over utterly horrifying possibilities. Because you can learn to live with just about anything, can't you?

[Lobo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Przede wszystkim chcę podziękować Leseparatist i Girl za pożyczenie swojego egzemplarza, przeprosić, że trzymałam go prawie rok, zwlekając z lekturą, i wyrazić nadzieję, że może jeszcze kiedyś coś mi pożyczą.

W każdym razie, powieść jest genialna. Wiem, że wisiała mi w aktualnych czytanych absurdalnie długi czas, ale tylko dlatego, że przesunęłam ją ze stosu książek na szafie do stosu książek przy łóżku. Sama lektura zajęła mi niecałą dobę, bo z trudem byłam w stanie się od niej oderwać. Walton ma naprawdę niesamowity, niemal hipnotyzujący styl, który wciągnął mnie w świat podwójnego życia Patricii bardzo szybko i bardzo głęboko. Zadziwia mnie więc, jak bardzo pasjonowałam się życiami Patricii, ile emocji wywoływały we mnie kolejne wydarzenia. Jedno z jej żyć obserwowałam jak film grozy, przerażona do poziomu, gdzie czułam mdłości; drugie - z fascynacją i nadzieję, tak bardzo jej kibicując. W obu przypadkach Patricia okazała się wspaniała, ale chyba łatwo zgadnąć, jaką nadzieję żywię, co do wyboru, który podjęła.

W obu przypadkach historia Patricii jest inspirująca. Chciałabym mieć życie, chociaż w części tak produktywne, szczęśliwe i pełne miłości, jak jej. Nieważne, na którym etapie to osiągnęła.

Plus, powieść jest genialne skonstruowana i aż chciałoby się napisać jakieś długaśne opracowanie, rozkładające je na części.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Trish’s world was so much better than Pat’s. Trish’s world was peaceful. Eastern and Western Europe had open frontiers. There had been no nuclear bombs dropped after Hiroshima, no clusters of thyroid cancer. There had been very little terrorism. The world had become quietly socialist, quietly less racist, less homophobic. In Pat’s world it had all gone the other way."

These are the worlds in which Patricia Anne Cowan is still living. At one moment in her life she made one choice - out of two possible - and at the same time the other...

The sci-fi part resides in the fact that the story is set in an alternate history, presenting two worlds in which Kennedy lived / died in an explosion, Alan Turing did not committ suicide, nuclear bombs were daily news and a moon base was established. Other than that, it's the story of a normal woman during her 89 years of life.

It is a sad, heart-breaking, powerful, brilliant biography, covering the entire range of emotions and it's impossible for the reader not to find itself in one of those situations. A life so full, no matter the choice made. A yin/yang life. A lonely one in which there is peace and the other full of love but also full of wars. Which one will you choose?

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I loved almost everything about this book. The deft imagining of two parallel timelines of the twentieth century, both different from our own, the vivid depictions of every character in both timelines, the ways in which Pat/Trish is different and the same. I basically read the whole book cover to cover yesterday. I had other things to do, but I couldn't put it down. I read the last several chapters with tears pouring down my face. I think it would have been a five star book for me except for the last line. I've read reviews that interpreted it differently than I did, and maybe it's meant to be a personal rorshach for the reader as well as for Pat/Trish. But the fact that she thought she had to choose at all upset me. There are other books and movies that have trod this path - I'm particularly thinking of the underrated film Mr. Nobody - but the way this came together, and the particulars of both lives, touched me deeply.