The Life to Come, to be released on 4th January 2018, is a minutely, warmly observant novel about criss-crossing, intersecting lives. The characters’ pasts, presents, thoughts and dreams are unfurled slowly through their actions and thoughts, until the whole of the person is laid out: what made them what they are, what small and large incidents and events brought them to this point in their lives. It’s a beautiful book, drenched in realism, but alive with possibilities, wishes, and what-ifs.
The narrative drifts, focusing on a character’s story by turn, and subjecting a life to scrutiny before moving on softly but swiftly to the next. The overarching arc of the book is simply the lives of the characters, and how their acts and misunderstandings have far-reaching consequences for each other – the inner life that can be glimpsed only through the character’s actions and reflections, the reactions of their friends, and the public impression, all often misunderstood even by those closest to them.
It is a strange and twisting book, with many small stories highlighting aspects of the characters that reveal who they are, and how they have come to be. Reading this was like floating along on their lives, sampling exquisite episodes, emotions, high and low points. In parts, the story drifts languidly until it suddenly pauses to dive deeper; taking in this and that, like a tourist, then bursting with sudden clarity and focus as the vital heart and inner clockwork of life is revealed in the climax to each of the individual lives.
Wry, sly, touching, heart-breaking and uplifting. I was stunned by the time I’d finished reading this book, my emotions torn this way and that. De Kretser is a master at literary manipulation – everything is running along swimmingly until you hit certain parts that get you right there.
It’s a slow starter, but once I’d really clicked with the characters, I was pulled under the waves of de Kretser’s hypnotic storytelling – The Life to Come is like the tides and eddies of a sea current, focusing on lives and small events, and single, beautiful moments before rushing off to look from another angle, at another life.
There are five distinct stories, but the lives of the characters in each intersect and entwine with each other, weaving together to form a needle-sharp, overarching point.
The characters and events are complex and winding – so much so that I want to re-read this straight away to explore the interior stories I didn’t fully catch the first time, and to revisit my favourite characters – for although many of them are unlikeable, and one in particular is a posturing, self-important mare wholly ignorant and dismissive of everyone around her, they are each drawn with utter realism, and I want to spend more time with them.
The Life to Come is written almost like the gossip of a very literary and knowledgeable friend, and the invisible narrator is dryly unjudgemental, giving few outright clues as to what the reader should be feeling about the events and characters, so that when the shocks, revelations, and surprises came, I felt unprepared and side-swiped – and all the more delighted at each and every turn, for that. I recommend, no, urge this book onto almost anyone, and I’d guess it has a fair number of literary prizes on its horizon, and that it will become a firm favourite among Book Club reads.
Release Date: 4th January 2018. Publisher: Allen & Unwin UK
I received a review copy of The Life to Come from the publisher via NetGalley
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