Life After Life (novel)
A novel exploring multiple alternative lives of Ursula Todd.
Life After Life follows Ursula Todd, who repeatedly relives her life after dying, gaining memories of previous versions.[1][2]
Quick Facts
- Author
- Kate Atkinson
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Historical fiction
- Format
- Print (hardcover, paperback)
- Pages
- 529 (1st edition, hardcover)
- Followed by
- A God in Ruins
Facts from the source article.
Making and release
Kate Atkinson's eighth novel, Life After Life, is considered one of her "literary" works rather than a crime thriller.[3] The novel pushes toward its heartland: the London Blitz.[3] A brief prologue shows Ursula in a Munich coffee shop in 1930, assassinating Hitler with her father's old service revolver.[4] Ursula eventually uses knowledge from her previous lives to befriend Eva Braun and get close to Hitler with a loaded gun.[2]
The inevitable price of killing Hitler is being shot dead by his Nazi followers immediately afterward.[2] The BBC commissioned a four-part adaptation in December 2020.[5] Broadcast of the series started on 19 April 2022, with Thomasin McKenzie and Sian Clifford among the cast.[5]
What the cited sources add
Alex Clark of The Guardian praised the novel's beautiful conveyance of domestic details and traumatic shifts in British society.[4][6] Clark argued that Atkinson co-opts the family to show how fiction works, with emotional delicacy that transcends experiment.[4][6] He criticized the portions outside Britain, saying the book has an abundance of human warmth but is not convincing.[1][7] In 2019, The Guardian ranked Life After Life as the 20th best book since 2000.[8][9]
Jordison observed that the repeated scenes show genuine playfulness, and the recurrence never becomes tedious.[1][7]
References
- Jordison, "Not the Booker prize 2013: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson", The Guardian, 2013-08-27. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Wikipedia, "Life After Life (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hore, "Life After Life, By Kate Atkinson (review)", The Independent (UK), 9 March 2013 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Hore, "Life After Life, By Kate Atkinson (review)", The Independent (UK), 9 March 2013. facts only, no text reused. independent.co.uk
- Clark, "Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (review)", The Guardian, 6 March 2013. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Wikipedia, "Life After Life (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "BBC One commissions adaptation of Kate Atkinson's award-winning best-seller Life After Life", BBC, 16 December 2020; "Thomasin McKenzie & Sian Clifford To Lead Cast For BBC Adaptation Of Kate Atkinson's 'Life After Life'", Deadline, 20 April 2021; "Life After Life", BBC, 2022-04-12 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Life After Life (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Clark, "Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (review)", The Guardian, 6 March 2013; Brown, "Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (review)", The Daily Telegraph (UK), 22 Apr 2013; Hore, "Life After Life, By Kate Atkinson (review)", The Independent (UK), 9 March 2013 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Life After Life (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jordison, "Not the Booker prize 2013: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson", The Guardian, 2013-08-27 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Guardian Staff, "The 100 best books of the 21st century", The Guardian, 2019-09-21. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Wikipedia, "Life After Life (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Guardian Staff, "The 100 best books of the 21st century", The Guardian, 2019-09-21 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Life After Life (novel) (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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