Patrick

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.