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A Todd Family Novel
by Kate Atkinson
Book Reviewed by:The stunning companion to Kate Atkinson's #1 bestseller Life After Life, "one of the best novels I've read this century" (Gillian Flynn).
"He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future."
Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances and the power of choices, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century over and over again.
A God in Ruins tells the dramatic story of the 20th Century through Ursula's beloved younger brother Teddy - would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather - as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have.
An ingenious and moving exploration of one ordinary man's path through extraordinary times, A God in Ruins proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age.
Costa Book Awards
2015
Atkinson's A God in Ruins is simultaneously a story of one man's harrowing journey through war, a family's journey through the twentieth century, and every person's journey through mistakes and shortcomings toward something resembling redemption, no matter how imperfect...continued
Full Review
(659 words)
(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
Images of birds abound in Kate Atkinson's new novel, A God in Ruins - surprising, perhaps, even the author herself: "Just don't ask me why there are so many geese. I have absolutely no idea," she writes in her afterword. Most indelible, though, is the image of the skylark, which Atkinson includes near the book's opening, as a young Teddy walks through the countryside with his aunt. "The quivering flight of the bird and the beauty of its music triggered an unexpectedly deep emotion" in the boy, Atkinson writes.
Atkinson is certainly not the first writer to find beauty - and metaphoric urgency - in the skylark's flight and song ("Was there a poet who hadn't written about skylarks?" Teddy wonders). Despite its relatively drab coloration,...
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