Version One Laura Barnett is obsessed by the image of a woman on a bicycle swerving to avoid hitting a dog, watched over by a young man casually walking down a lane. Eva and Jim are nineteen, students at Cambridge in 1958, she studying English and he law. Laura has some idea about their backgrounds – Eva the daughter of Jewish musicians who fled Austria in 1938; Jim the son of a now-deceased famous painter and an unstable mother – but she can’t make up her mind where to take them next. So she writes three different versions of their story, falling in love with each such that she can’t bear to discard any one of them. So she puts all three in the same novel.
Version Two Laura Barnett likes romance, but she’s a bit suspicious of the happy-ever-after premise. Although still young herself, she doesn’t agree that later-life get-togethers are somehow inferior to younger couplings. She sets herself the task of writing a novel that will follow the same two characters across their entire adult lives through three different versions of their story: one in which they marry young and two in which they don’t, Eva instead marrying her original boyfriend, the narcissistic actor, David. In these latter two, Eva and Jim’s paths cross intermittently, in one version resulting in an extramarital affair, another in which they recognise their mutual attraction but, either through circumstances or restraint, they remain loyal to their other partners.
Version Two Laura Barnett likes romance, but she’s a bit suspicious of the happy-ever-after premise. Although still young herself, she doesn’t agree that later-life get-togethers are somehow inferior to younger couplings. She sets herself the task of writing a novel that will follow the same two characters across their entire adult lives through three different versions of their story: one in which they marry young and two in which they don’t, Eva instead marrying her original boyfriend, the narcissistic actor, David. In these latter two, Eva and Jim’s paths cross intermittently, in one version resulting in an extramarital affair, another in which they recognise their mutual attraction but, either through circumstances or restraint, they remain loyal to their other partners.
Version Three As a writer, journalist and theatre critic, Laura Barnett is interested in creativity. Is it a trait passed down from parent to child? Is it linked to madness? What are the conditions in which it thrives? Does a stable family background help or is it facilitated by an unconventional lifestyle? Can artists be excused infidelity, and are there different expectations for women than for men? She sets out to explore these questions in a novel about the career highs and lows of a writer (Eva) and a painter (Jim).
My Version I don’t know which of these versions – if any – is most true to the author’s intentions, but I do know that, of the three novels I’ve read recently exploring alternate versions of a life (My Real Children and The End of Days), this is the one I most enjoyed. But I do have some reservations. The three different plotlines are presented chronologically, moving between them in short (very filmic) scenes. Although each version of the story is clearly indicated, I did struggle to keep in mind which details belonged where. I’m probably not the ideal reader, as I tend to like my fictional romance to take more of a back seat and I rarely get excited about writers and other artists as characters. Nevertheless, a worthy debut, the object of Weidenfeld and Nicholson’s (to whom thanks for my advance proof copy) biggest marketing and publicity campaign of the year.
Apologies if this review isn’t up to the usual standard; my computer failed to save the version I wrote at the weekend, so I’ve had to redo it to get this out for publication day tomorrow. Fortunately, given that I’d taken few notes, the unusual structure I’d chosen for this one has helped keep most of it in mind, and I’ve managed to rattle it off in under an hour (probably less time than I wasted looking for it). I was tempted to post the gobbledygook that it had saved, but then you’d probably be as frustrated as I was!
My Version I don’t know which of these versions – if any – is most true to the author’s intentions, but I do know that, of the three novels I’ve read recently exploring alternate versions of a life (My Real Children and The End of Days), this is the one I most enjoyed. But I do have some reservations. The three different plotlines are presented chronologically, moving between them in short (very filmic) scenes. Although each version of the story is clearly indicated, I did struggle to keep in mind which details belonged where. I’m probably not the ideal reader, as I tend to like my fictional romance to take more of a back seat and I rarely get excited about writers and other artists as characters. Nevertheless, a worthy debut, the object of Weidenfeld and Nicholson’s (to whom thanks for my advance proof copy) biggest marketing and publicity campaign of the year.
Apologies if this review isn’t up to the usual standard; my computer failed to save the version I wrote at the weekend, so I’ve had to redo it to get this out for publication day tomorrow. Fortunately, given that I’d taken few notes, the unusual structure I’d chosen for this one has helped keep most of it in mind, and I’ve managed to rattle it off in under an hour (probably less time than I wasted looking for it). I was tempted to post the gobbledygook that it had saved, but then you’d probably be as frustrated as I was!
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