In a style reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, A God in Ruins hopscotches back and forth in time, spanning four generations of the Todd family from 1925 through 2012. While he never gives up his love of language (after the war, Teddy writes for a regional newspaper on local natural phenomena), the would-be poet and one-time war hero does not achieve the dreams he envisioned, leading him, instead, to a life of mediocrity and disappointment. (Ursula Todd, Teddy’s sister, was the protagonist of Atkinson’s prior bestseller, Life After Life.) Nominally set in World War II, the story follows the life of Teddy Todd, a child whose love for poetry and nature swiftly changes when, as a young adult, he volunteers for the war effort, becoming a fighter pilot and leading bombing sorties over Nazi Germany. That personal dictum has now changed upon my reading of Kate Atkinson’s masterful novel A God in Ruins.

While historians may use the stuff of fiction (character development, exposition, description) to render the past into a cogent narrative, and fiction writers may draw on historical references in their stories, the two are best left on their own. While I love reading about history, I have always felt fiction and history are two separate constructs, each existing in its own right.

I’ve never been one for historical novels.

A god in ruins series