The best books where past and present collide: dual timelines

In 1986, four friends follow chalk pictures of a hanged man to a dismembered body; in 2016 they start getting pictures again… I love this book because of its brilliantly curated tension, ramping up through the book. The two timelines work because they are distinct, the past full of cultural references and even behaviours that are different from 2016. We see through Eddie’s point of view, from a twelve-year-old fascinated and repelled by a dead girl, to a forty-something teacher. Each friend has grown in a different direction, and it’s difficult to maintain the friendship, so much so that one of them ends up dead. I loved the parallels between the two timelines, suspected teacher, ‘the pale man,’ and the person Eddie has become. 

I loved this book partly because it was such a surprise! There are historical bones in Julia’s new garden near Boston. Norris Marshall, studying medicine back in the 1830s, funds his studies by providing cadavers. He buys from a body snatcher, but starts to wonder where he is getting the bodies from… The link between the two strands is delicate, crisscrossing the book and making each strand dependent on the other. The 1830s is viscerally exposed, through the brutal medical techniques at the time to the hunger and desperation of the poor. I couldn’t put it down, and it has a poignant if surprising ending that brings both timelines together.   

This book moved me. This book expertly tells a single story but from each end. One timeline travels back from 1981, as Georgy watches over his dying wife, Zoya. The poignancy of these two old people, still in love, still themselves spoke to me. The other timeline follows him from early childhood through Romanov Russia, as nine-year-old Georgy saves the life of the tsar’s cousin. The relationship grows between the main characters, told back and forth, revealing layers of connection and history between them. The two strands end at the shocking revelation of the ‘special purpose.’ I enjoyed the mystery but fell in love with the characters, and the wonderful settings. The two timelines added powerfully to the reading of the story.  

I loved this book, but looked over my shoulder while I was reading it. Vida Winter is a reclusive writer, who asks Margaret Lea to write her biography. Lea mixes taking notes and recording interviews with visiting the Gothic locations in the story. Vida tells the tale from the past, about the feral twins and their neglectful, volatile mother. Margaret uncovers evidence from the present going backwards. The two narratives arrive at a satisfying conclusion via a fire, a ghost, and a governess. Vida is delightfully unreliable. The reader is left to come to their own conclusions about who dies in the fire, and who fathered what child. I loved the film, too, although for different reasons. 

This book is told from multiple time points. Henry and Clare fall in love, but Henry can’t help his biology which forces him to jump back and forth in time. The costs are high, their time together is often short, but their relationship develops. The time jumps confuse the characters as much as the readers, which has divided reviews ever since. I loved it because the characters and their relationships are bigger than the sci-fi idea of ‘chrono-impairment’, a trait inherited by their daughter. Knowing Henry will die at some point haunts the book, yet a clever twist directs away from it and resolves it at the end. A book I return to again and again, which could only be told through multiple timelines.