2025/013: A Line You Have Traced — Roisin Dunnett

...when we talk about time, we should really talk about history, because that's the only element of time that we understand. ... some parts of time are actually thinner than others ... what wears it thin? Stories, narrative, expression. [loc. 2422]

A Line You Have Traced is the story of three women living in East London, in three different centuries: Bea, a silversmith's wife, in the 1930s; Kay, devoting her life to partying in something like contemporary London; and Ess, living in a near-future collective which believes that humans will soon be extinct. (All the character names in this novel are letters of the alphabet, from Bea's husband Ade to Ess's friend Zizi. This became annoying until the story really got going.) The three are related by more than blood. There's an angel whose appearances Bea records in a small red notebook, Kay's fantasies about being watched by time travellers, Ess's friendship with an elderly man whose vast personal archive of photographs and documents holds the key to an ambitious plan. There are also three cats, named Tuna, Mackerel and Sardine, who may also be related...

Each viewpoint was fascinating, though perhaps Kay's less so (because more familiar) than Bea's or Ess's. Bea's story includes the story of her husband's friendship with a novelist, who presents a warped and misogynist portrait of Bea in his account of Ade's life: it also includes the Battle of Cable Street and the rise of fascism. Kay's account is a portrait of contemporary queer life, with the looming climate emergency and a lack of direction. And Ess's future, with its antique Tupperware and acceptance of doom -- and its radical solutions -- feels horribly credible.

Dunnett's prose is fluent, and each voice is distinctive: she's very good at dialogue, and her depictions of the changing face of misogyny -- especially in the context of female fertility -- over the three narratives is acute. I'm still not clear about the novel's resolution: Dunnett presents us with possibilities rather than a definitive event. But that's the nature of the beast, that's the multiverse, that's history for you.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 15th April 2025.