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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Mar 2007, 528 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2008, 528 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Using a playful parallel-universe structure,The Post-Birthday World follows one woman's future as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men.
In this eagerly awaited new novel, Lionel Shriver, the Orange Prize-winning
author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin,
delivers an imaginative and entertaining look at the implications, large and
small, of whom we choose to love. Using a playful parallel-universe structure,
The Post-Birthday World follows one woman's future as it unfolds under the
influence of two drastically different men.
Children's book illustrator Irina McGovern enjoys a quiet and settled life in
London with her partner, fellow American expatriate Lawrence Trainer, a smart,
loyal, disciplined intellectual at a prestigious think tank. To their small
circle of friends, their relationship is rock solid. Until the night Irina
unaccountably finds herself dying to kiss another man: their old friend from
South London, the stylish, extravagant, passionate top-ranking snooker player
Ramsey Acton. The decision to give in to temptation will have consequences for
her career, her relationships with family and friends, and perhaps most
importantly the texture of her daily life.
Hinging on a single kiss, this enchanting work of fiction depicts Irina's
alternating futures with two men temperamentally worlds apart yet equally
honorable. With which true love Irina is better off is neither obvious nor easy
to determine, but Shriver's exploration of the two destinies is memorable and
gripping. Poignant and deeply honest, written with the subtlety and wit that are
the hallmarks of Shriver's work, The Post-Birthday World appeals to the
what-if in us all.
Chapter One
What began as coincidence had crystallized into tradition: on the sixth of July, they would have dinner with Ramsey Acton on his birthday.
Five years earlier, Irina had been collaborating with Ramsey's then-wife, Jude Hartford, on a children's book. Jude had made social overtures. Abjuring the airy we-really-must-get-together-sometime feints common to London, which can carry on indefinitely without threatening to clutter your diary with a real time and place, Jude had seemed driven to nail down a foursome so that her illustrator could meet her husband, Ramsey. Or, no—she'd said, "My husband, Ramsey Acton." The locution had stood out. Irina assumed that Jude was prideful in that wearing feminist way about the fact that she'd not taken her husband's surname.
But then, it is always difficult to impress the ignorant. When negotiating with Lawrence over the prospective dinner back in 1992, Irina didn't know enough to mention, "Believe it or not, Jude's married...
To Shriver's credit, even though both men are in many ways polar opposites, they are never presented as simply right or wrong for Irena, let alone good or bad people in themselves. Both love Irena intensely, both mean well at heart and both are honorable if flawed men - and neither are quite the men that Irena thinks them to be...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Snooker is a very British sport, primarily played in the UK and various parts of the former colonies. The game bears some similarity to American Pool in that they both involve cues and balls, but Snooker is played on a table four times larger than the Pool table, the pockets are smaller and snooker players would say that the game is more subtle.
The essence of Snooker is to pot the balls to gain the highest score. There are fifteen red balls each worth one point and six colored balls worth from two points (yellow) to seven (black). A player's turn lasts until he fails to pot a ball, but he must alternate the potting of balls so that a red is followed by a higher-point ball, then another red, and so on. The reds stay in the pocket, the...
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