In Kate Atkinson’s new novel, she hints at the idea that undergirds all of her historical fiction: no matter how closely we examine or imagine the past, the idea that we might fully understand it is always an illusion.
” for the Whitbread Prize. In British media, Atkinson was derisively described as “a 44-year-old chambermaid” who “had written a Post-Modern novel, but might not know it.” But, as Hilary Mantel wrote in her furiously vindicating review, Atkinson knew exactly what she was doing with the book’s digressive temporal leaps.
The novel draws inspiration from the larger-than-life figure of Kate Meyrick, the “night-club queen” of nineteen-twenties London, who owned a series of clubs routinely populated by celebrities, royals, and the so-called Bright Young Things of the period. Her stand-in here is Nellie Coker, who, like Meyrick, runs a night-life empire in Soho’s “square mile of vice,” assisted by her brood of grown children.
That curiosity is itself familiar. Atkinson is a meticulous researcher, and her fascination with the material, daily life of past eras shows in the detailed scene dressing of her novels, which often feature product placements for real brands or items. She offers hints of a period’s popular obsessions—the curse of Tutankhamun, in this case—that tantalize without feeling expository. And some details serve as rabbit holes, inviting readers to conjure further context for the period at hand.
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