It’s 2015. Patricia Cowan is in a care home. The chart at the end of her bed reads “Confused today.” Sometimes it reads “Very confused.” She’s not entirely sure if the washroom is to the left or to the right.
She remembers two lives. In one she married a man, had four children and five miscarriages, and lived a life of quiet desperation. In the other she lived with a woman, with whom she shared three children children, and wrote travel guides to Florence and other Italian cities. There are cities on the moon, or maybe they’re just weapon platforms.
Which life was real? Where did they diverge?
Well, you’ll need to read Jo Walton’s novel My Real Children to know for sure. It’s a look at two lives, four generations, alternate geopolitics, the Renaissance, and all the lives we touch whether we mean to or not.
(I lied, a little, when I said it’s about two lives. Honestly, it’s about dozens and dozens of lives touched by Patricia, not just her two lives.)
You’ll find happiness and sorrow throughout, both at the personal scale and the grand. This is my second foray into the work of Jo Walton, after the Just City trilogy, and she does not flinch from showing you the tragedy of life. But she’ll show you the joy, too.