The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

The Versions of Us

Laura Barnett

We've all had a 'what if' moment; I'd not taken the job, left her, gone to the party? Eva and Jim meet. Three versions of their existence, shared or apart explore what might have happened - if. Keep your wits about you, they aren't consecutive, most of the characters and some situations are the same. The choices are not. Art, women's changing roles and family life all play a part in stories that absorbed, satisfied and, at the end, moved me.

Extract
As they talk, Eva has the sense that she is drifting further and further from the room, into a borderless place where time fractures, loosens, and there is only this man, this conversation, this inexplicable sense of profound connection. There is no other way she can describe it though she is not yet trying to describe it to herself - she is simply here, intensely aware of the moment ( the nearness of him, the soft rise and fall of his voice) as the rest of the world drops away.
Parallels
  • Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
  • Sliding Doors - the film
  • Hearts and Bones - song by Paul Simon

Guilty Pleasures