If, Then

I always find alternate reality stories intriguing; after all, who hasn’t thought of the proverbial fork in the road and wondered how different their lives would be if they made a different decision? What would it be like to find out just how different things would be? Would you regret it?

While alternate realities are a part of If, Then, it turns out the story is not so much an exploration of the road not traveled so much as it is a story about the line between alternate realities blurring. It is about seeing an alternate self and wondering how and why your lives differ. It is trying to make sense of the differences and questioning whether your alternate self is happier. It is about the choices we consciously make and those we don’t show more recognize as choices but which impact our lives all the same.

I loved Kate Hope Day’s If, Then. It is intelligent but approachable. It is clever, with an ending that took me by surprise even though I thought I knew how the story was going to end. It is supremely well-written, balancing characters and drama with the right blend of development for each. The novel itself is not very long, but Ms. Day makes excellent use of each word to extract the full amount of world and character building necessary for understanding and connection. I just wish it was making more of a splash among readers because it is so creative and an excellent overall read. show less

This is a quiet literary novel with a speculative premise. It is about three rather typical families who live on a cul-de-sac in a small town in Oregon underneath a supposedly dormant volcano. As the novel alternates among points of view of four different characters, they begin to catch glimpses of a world that doesn't exist: a dead mother come back to life or alternate versions of themselves. These visions spur each character to make choices that will alter the course of their own lives. Yes, this is a novel that uses the multiverse as its premise, but it's really a meditation on the choices we make and those we don't, the possibilities we create for ourselves. In the end, it seems to say that it's not too late to choose something show more different for ourselves, that our lives are not necessarily random outcomes of fate (although that does play a part). I liked that, but I think anyone expecting something more science fictiony will be disappointed. show less

This review can also be found on my blog.
4.5 ⭐️

cw: infidelity, grief
disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for review consideration. All of the opinions presented below are my own. All quotes have been taken from the advanced copy and are subject to change upon publication.

I’m sure all of us have wondered what if. All those little -- and big -- choices that we’ve made throughout our lives. What they would have led to, where we’d be today had we chosen a different path. If, Then explores what would happen if we got a glimpse of these once possible other lives. The plot is mostly slow-moving and even when big things happen, the focus is almost entirely on the show more characters’ internal lives. Kate Hope Day is a remarkably good writer, and I was surprised to find this was her debut novel. She writes flawed, believable characters whose lives you will truly care about. It’s hard to delve too much into without reaching “spoiler” territory, but I’ll try.

She waits for a rush of gratitude for all the good, solid things in her life. But it doesn’t come. Her life will continue just as it is. She’ll go home and figure out what to make for dinner. She’ll have a glass of wine, feed the cats, and talk to Mark about what to do if school is cancelled next week. She’ll iron a shirt for clinic tomorrow.

Ginny was probably my favorite character (although I’m probably biased because she’s queer). She starts out as the stereotypical woman-who-can’t-have-it-all, a surgeon who doesn’t have time for her family, but as her thoughts and experiences are exposed to us she becomes her own person outside of the trope she lives. I do wish that her husband, Mark, had felt a bit more sympathetic to me, but I think that’s also due to some personal bias. It was interesting to see how Ginny’s perception of their relationship seemed to change the nature of the relationship itself, although Mark had something to do with that as well.

She’s not very good at it -- loving and being loved.

Samara is deep into mourning the loss of her mother, and I enjoyed seeing their relationship explored in a different way than Ginny and Mark’s. Most would assume that the death of a person ends your relationship with them, but it was clear that Samara’s bond with her mother was able to strengthen even after the death of the latter. I liked how this was displayed, through Samara imagining the things her mother would say and how those things shifted after Samara’s impression of her had changed.

The picture Cass has of herself -- it doesn’t match the woman in the rocker at all. When she thinks of herself the picture is colorless, all light eyes and skin and hair. Washed-out. Static. An overdeveloped driver’s license photo that lives permanently in her mind. But this other Cass is a polychromatic wonder. Full of agile, assured movement, even in routine pose. Full of grace.

Last but not least, I just adored Cass and seeing how her relationship with herself changed. Cass is a new mother and former doctorate student who put her studies on hold in order to care for her child. After giving birth, she lost all motivation to write and sees no way of returning to her former life in academia. As someone with depression and chronic fatigue, I can relate to having the need to do something while also lacking the ability to do it. Watching Cass grapple with this internal struggle felt simultaneously saddening and inspiring. With not just Cass, but the entire cast of characters, Day shows that change, even when necessary, is not easy.

What I really loved was the ending. There is a slowly rising wave of emotions building throughout the novel that come to a thrilling climax near the end. The aftermath of this wave is examined in a thoughtful and realistic light, and Day makes no promises of easy happy endings. She recognizes that although things are hopeful for these characters and their futures, difficulties still lie ahead. I’m no longer satisfied by carefree endings and enjoy the more nuanced world Day was able to provide. The journey of these characters is not at an end, and that is made clear to the reader. I put down the book with a surge of emotion, and hope that Day’s next novel will give me a similar experience. show less

If, Then takes place on a quiet street in a small Oregon town shelter in the shadow of a dormant volcano called Broken Mountain. We get to know three of the families living there as they go about their lives. There are Ginny and Mark and their son Noah. There are Samara and her father both mourning her mother who recently died. There is Cass with her newborn daughter, her husband Amar off on a research vessel while she feels the loss of her own career. Ginny, Mark, Samara, and Cass all see alternate versions of their lives. Samara sees her mother still alive, Cass sees a pregnant Cass, Ginny sees herself with Edith, a colleague, instead of her husband Mark, and Mark sees a sort of Mountain Mark who scares him.

Not only are they seeing show more things, but they are not telling anyone, keeping their confusion and anxiety to themselves. Nonetheless, this sparks a crisis for all of them which leads to them making important decisions about what kind of reality they want.



I liked Kate Hope Day’s If, Then very much. In many ways, it is a quiet story about people making choices about their lives. Should I live here or there? Should I go back to school? Should I leave my husband? Nonetheless, Day infuses their stories with urgency so that readers have to keep reading. The sense of place is compelling, and Day draws on all the senses to reify the environment which plays a critical role in the story. The story is peopled with characters who are likable and complex enough to intrigue us, leaving readers uncertain what choices they may make. This all adds up to an excellent book well worth reading.

If, Then will be published on March 12th, I received a copy from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.

If, Then at Penguin Random House
Kate Hope Day

★★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/02/02/9780525511229/ show less

I love stories that take place in multiple universes, but I felt like this book was trying to do everything, and so it lacked a clear vision or message. It was interesting to contemplate how small choices could create wildly divergent futures, but there just wasn't enough room for a story about a woman grieving her mother, and a woman contemplating building her family while keeping an intellectual life, and a woman reassessing her sexuality, while also telling a story of a man who becomes obsessed with protecting his family. Cutting back on the number of POV characters might have allowed some deeper exploration of the real life dramas going on within the more fantastical structure of the story.

Broken Mountain, a supposedly dormant volcano, looms over the quiet town of Clearing, Oregon. In Clearing, people are beginning to have strange visions of other versions of themselves: a surgeon sees herself with a colleague, not her husband; the husband, a scientist, sees himself filthy and wild; a young woman mourning her mother's death sees her mother in the front yard; a scholar and new mother formulating a Theory of Everything sees herself pregnant again. Are these alternate selves future versions? Or is everything happening, all at once?

See also: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, My Real Children by Jo Walton

Quotes

Epigraph
I believe, and so do you, that things could have been different in countless ways.
-David Lewis, show more Counterfactuals

Her life is smaller since she had Leah, and less free. But it's also much more than it was, all at once, all at the same time. She has to be more than one thing now. She has to be two, three, four. It seemed impossible at first. But now...maybe it's not. (Cass, 139)

But it's hard to imagine that kind of love doubled. (Cass, 218)

...her life...is only one of an infinite number of possible lives in the multiverse. These other realities are not hypothetical. They are real. (Cass, 234)

I wasn't seeing myself in the future. I was seeing another version of myself now. (Cass to Amar, 235) show less

Writing a novel that deals with multiple possibilities is usually a high-brow concept that requires a great deal of skill, both in order to make everything make sense, but also to try and say something new and original - after all, there are a lot of great predecessors in this subgenre. Think of Paul Auster's recent 4, 3, 2, 1 (2017), for instance, which while not quite a masterpiece, was pretty damn good.

Kate Hope Day's If, Then (2019) is a competent but utterly mediocre novel, and it probably would score more than one star from most readers. It focuses on four extremely boring characters, who are all either utterly mundane or hackneyed cliches. Consider Day's philosophy professor, Robert Kells, for instance. Kells is the gruff but show more caring slob with, naturally, a heart of gold, who somehow made it to a tenured professorship with only a single book, Counter-Factuals, based on his dissertation. Talk about an imaginary parallel world!

The novel itself moves painfully slowly through the lives of these infinitely dull characters, turning over each and every stone of their lives. In the meantime, there is the most obvious deus ex machina ever written waiting to explode onto the scene from the opening line. There is even a character named Cass(andra), after the Trojan prophetess whose prophecies no one heeded.

As such, the flatness of the characters and the story, the pointless plot, and the pretentiously sophomoric reflections on "counterfactuals" was just too much for me. I hated this book, even though some people will like (and maybe even love) it.

If Auster's 4,3,2,1 was a novel written by an author who is influenced by continental philosophy, then Day's If, Then is what happens when an author who is influenced by analytical philosophy decides, in turn, to write one. It is, as one might expect, f***ing awful. show less