The Post-birthday World
Lionel Shriver
This is a literary equivalent of Sliding Doors, Peter Howitt’s 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow as a character whose fate hinges on whether she catches or misses a train.
In Shriver’s book, the pivotal event is a birthday celebration.
Illustrator Irina McGovern, who is in a long-term relationship with research analyst Lawrence Trainer, goes down one of two paths. In one, she kisses Ramsey Acton, snooker star and ex-husband of a former friend at the party.
In the other, she resists the impulse.
So is this a moralistic tale of how she ought to have stuck by her man or a tale of female empowerment and emancipation from a stifling relationship?
Both actually. In the last third of the book, the writer spells out what she’s gunning for. “The idea is that you don’t have only one destiny. ... But whichever direction you go, there are going to be upsides and downsides.”
What you get is an exhaustive and sometimes exhausting excavation of the emotional minutiae of Irina’s relationships with the two men.
The novel’s structure sets up lots of interesting parallel situations where the same event is viewed differently by Irina because it is coloured by her different actions in the two worlds.
Still, the idea that all destinies are equal rings false. After all, the writer has chosen two very specific scenarios to present to readers but there can be only one ending.


If you like this, read: Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis
Amis uses the concept of time travelling backwards to evoke the horrors of the Holocaust anew.
(ST)