WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA NOVEL AWARD
A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd – would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot, husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century.
Triumphant...such a dazzling read...Atkinson gives Teddy's wartime experiences the full treatment in a series of
thrilling set pieces. Even more
impressive,though, is her ability to invest the more everday events with a similar
grandeur...almost as
innovative as Atkinson's technique in Life After Life - a possibly more
authentic as an expression of how it feels to be alive...it ends on
one of the most devastating twists in recent fiction...it adds a further level of
overwhelming poignancy to an already
extraordinarily affecting book.
This is a novel about war and the shadow it casts even over generations who have never known it, but it is also a novel about fiction...this is a novel that cares deeply about its characters and about the purpose of fiction in making sense of our collective past. A God in Ruins, together with its predecessor, is
Atkinson's finest work, and confirmation that her genre-defying writing continues to surpise and dazzle.With A God in Ruins she, once again, proves herself to be
a writer of considerable talent. Her command of structure is
extraordinary...She writes with
terrific compassion for her characters...also shows off
a brilliantly brittle sense of humour that on several occasions
made me laugh out loud...to my mind, A God in Ruins stands as an
equally magnificent achievement.
Horribly funny...every page has some vividly
original phrase...But the
tour de force is her treatment of Teddy’s experience as a bomber pilot, recreated as memorably as the Blitz scenes in Life After Life... nothing can quite account for the imaginative leaps she has made...
nailbiting...a really affecting memorial to the huge numbers of bomber crew who died.
Better than most fiction you'll read this year...Atkinson's prose is as bright as gunfire in the Second World War sections...I can't think of any writer to match her ability to grasp a period in the past. No, not even you, Booker-winning Hilary Mantel.
Kate Atkinson is one of the world's foremost novelists. Her most recent novel,
Shrines of Gaiety, set in the aftermath of the First World War, is a
Sunday Times bestseller. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel,
Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her three critically lauded and prize-winning novels set around the Second World War are
Life After Life, an acclaimed 2022 BBC TV series,
A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award) and
Transcription. Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie,
Case Histories, One Good Turn,
When Will There Be Good News? and
Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel
Big Sky. Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.