The Names: A Novel

"an insightful and beautifully interwoven story that asks how much is inevitable and how much we can control in our lives"

Most of the publicity for this compelling debut novel has focused on the tagline: "Can a name change the course of a life?"

But it's not exactly the name of the newborn boy that triggers the three alternative histories that constitute The Names. Had this infant been called Justin or Jonathan instead of Julian in Narrative #2, or Lion or Tiger instead of Bear in Narrative #1, there's no reason to think that the storylines would have been different than they are.

Rather, this is an insightful and beautifully interwoven story that asks how much is inevitable and how much we can control in our lives.

The moment before everything changes is October 1987, when Cora Atkin and her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, go to a London government office to register the name of their family's new baby. Cora's husband, Gordon, a well-liked physician, assumes that the boy will also be named Gordon, as all the men in his family are. Cora and Maia toy with other possibilities. Maia suggests the name Bear because "It sounds all soft and cuddly and kind. . . But also, brave and strong." Cora hedges with the idea of Julian, which means "sky father," wondering if that connection with fatherhood would mollify Gordon.  

From there, the novel breaks into alternative trajectories in which the boy is named Bear, Julian, or Gordon. These three stories are told in seven-year intervals over 35 years, mainly through the viewpoints of Cora, Maia, and the Bear-Julian-Gordon character. The crucial difference among the three is whether and how Cora fights back against her husband.

"It takes all her strength not to sink to his feet and let him kick her, to not even try to escape its inevitability," Cora thinks in the earliest Bear narrative, and the other two versions of Cora share similar feelings at various points.

In the Bear and Julian sections, the father is so furious about the baby's name that he tries to kill Cora. He is sent to prison, which allows the rest of the family to free themselves somewhat from his control, at least until his parole date nears.

In the Gordon narrative, meanwhile, Cora becomes the father's nonstop victim, from beatings and hair-yanking, to gaslighting, belittling, and isolation. He turns Maia and Gordon against their mother with a combination of charm and contempt. By age seven, Gordon is inventing small sins that Cora supposedly committed, "things that seemed to make his father's face lighter, more engaged, as though he was drinking up Gordon's words."

Author Florence Knapp does a masterful job of scattering connections and hints throughout the book, some of them subtle, some significant.

Nature versus nurture? In all three narratives, Maia and her brother share some identical personality traits, yet these traits develop differently. For instance, Bear, Julian, and Gordon all show an early interest in art, which flowers for Julian into a career as a jewelry-maker, takes Bear on a side route to archaeology, and coincidentally lands Gordon doing digital work for an art museum.

One key character is injured in a terrorist bombing in Paris; in another narrative, a character glimpses a headline announcing the attack. A high school student named Lily provides an important romantic interest for Bear, a more chilling experience for Gordon, and merely a walk-on for Julian. Perhaps the author is saying that Cora's initial decision to defy her husband affected Lily's life path as much as it affected her own children but has no impact on a major news event.

Life is determined as much by missed opportunities as by the roads actually taken. In one of the most quietly powerful scenes in the Gordon narrative, a police officer shows up at Cora's doorstep to investigate a report of domestic abuse filed by her mother. Cora quickly brushes it off, explaining "that her mother has dementia." As the officer leaves, "she feels it then. The quiet death of something."

With so much rich material, the book stumbles only a little. The father is too much of a cliche, and too many ends are wrapped up too happily. 

But the epilogue is stunning and perfect.