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February 1998
Compiled by Carolyn Reinhard and the members of Fiction_L, from contributions by the members of Fiction_L.

(To use this list in your library, book club, etc., please include the following credit line: "Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." This list may not be used for commercial purposes.)

Examples of novels featuring 2 different narrators (or voices) of 2 different (or possibly connected) storylines occurring in 2 different time periods.

Ackroyd, Peter - THE HOUSE OF DOCTOR DEE; CHATTERTON; and HAWKSMOOR (which I remember as being creepy as all get out. A science fiction novel about environmental disaster)

Archer, Jeffrey - AS THE CROW FLIES (has multiple - at least 4 - narrators covering various timelines; each section covers a different time period; and each narrator overlaps slightly time-wise to give the story continuity)

Atwood, Margaret - THE HANDMAID'S TALE

Barnhardt, Wilton - THE GOSPEL

Benford, Gregory - TIMESCAPE

Benson, Ann - PLAGUE TALES

Byatt, A. S. - POSSESSION

Campbell, Scott - TOUCHED (a crime and its effects over 20 years are told by perpetrator, his wife, victim and (I think) his mother; my sympathetic reaction to the main character disturbed me. "This is definitely one for the book clubs.")

Connor, Beverly - QUESTIONABLE REMAINS (her latest novel juxtaposes two plots in time periods separated by 429 years. One story line follows the trail of Spanish conquistadors in Juan Pardo's 1567 expedition and quest for gold and silver among the Southeastern Indians of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama. The modern story line follows archaeologist Lindsay Chamberlain to a series of excavation sites where remains of the 1567 expedition are being unearthed and interpreted.)

Conrad, Joseph - LORD JIM and HEART OF DARKNESS

Dorris, Michael - YELLOW RAFT IN BLUE WATER (a 3-narrator novel: daughter, mother, grandmother. The daughter tells her story, the mother expands on part of it and adds more, as does the grandmother, eventually taking the reader back to the grandmother's youth, while still maintaining the storyline in the present time)

Faulkner, William - AS I LAY DYING; and THE SOUND AND THE FURY; (has many different narrators, but all telling the same story of the Compson family during one time period)

Finney, Jack - TIME AND AGAIN (includes 2 time periods, but only has one voice)

Flagg, Fannie - FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE

Flanagan, Thomas - THE TENANTS OF TIME (The same events are told from different viewpoints and from different time periods-long but worth it)

Fowles, John - THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (a very good example of this style); and DANIEL MARTIN (fits this profile)

Goddard, Robert - PAST CARING (I describe this as just about the best novel I've ever read, it was his first and by far best. Male readers should not be discouraged by all the comparisons to Mary Stewart and other writers. It is loved by ALL who read it!)

Godden, Rumer - TAKE THREE TENSES (subtitled "A Fugue in Time"; has 2 storylines - past and present - taking place in a family setting); and CHINA COURT (also an example of this style)

Goonan, Kathleen Ann - THE BONES OF TIME (alternates between two periods in the future with brief forays into the era of Princess Kaiulani in Hawaii. All three storylines (which involve high intrigue, true love, and my favorite, quantum physics) merge with the discovery of the whereabouts of King Kamehameha's bones; this book renewed my faith in science fiction)

Griffin, Peni R. - SWITCHING WELL (joins two girls in San Antonio who lived 100 years apart.)

Hershey, John - ANTONIETTA (story of the life of a Stradivari violin told by its different owners over two centuries)

Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer - HEAT AND DUST featured 2 women (aunt and niece? mother and daughter?) separated by time, but in the same place (India) having similar experiences. An excellent book)

Joyce, James - DUBLINERS

Kidd, Chico - THE PRINTERS DEVIL (1995; Baen Paperback original; may be hard to find) (alternate chapters told by an 18th century demonologist and the 20th century folks who are uncovering uncomfortably menacinginformation about him and his nastier colleague; a tour de force)

Landvik, Lorna - YOUR OASIS ON FLAME LAKE (a story which entertwines all those involved in their own voice/perspective.)

Laurence, Margaret - THIS SIDE JORDAN

L'Engle, Madeleine - THE LOVE LETTERS (it's old, but very good - while written in the third person, does intertwine the stories of two women, one contemporary, one 16th( ?) century)

Matheson, Richard - BID TIME RETURN (includes 2 time periods, but only has one voice; basis for the movie SOMEWHERE IN TIME starring Christopher Reeves)

Mendelsohn, Jane - I WAS AMELIA EARHART

Michener, James - THE NOVEL

Millhiser, Marly - THE MIRROR (On the eve of her wedding a young girl looks into an old family mirror and ends up switching places with her grandmother. The novel is both about the attempts of the contemporary woman to return to her time and about how both women adjust to their new homes, times, and lives. Good and a bit creepy)

Mitchard, Jacqueline - THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN (written in two voices--the mother and the oldest son)

Neville, Katherine - THE EIGHT (1 story; 2 main time periods, the French revolution and the seventies 1st person narration; one of the very best)

Rivers, Francine - THE SCARLET THREAD (story of two women, centuries apart, joined through a tattered journal. Sierra Madrid is a woman of the 1990s and Mary Kathryn McMurray is a young pioneer on the Oregon Trail; it has Christian facets)

Ross, Sinclair - SAWBONES MEMORIAL

Shreve, Anita - THE WEIGHT OF WATER

Stoppard, Tom - ARCADIA (a play, but a perfect example of this)

Sussex, Lucy - THE SCARLET RIDER (contemporary researcher of a forgotten 19th century novelist finds increasingly eerie parallels between her own situation and that of the novelist, whose prose is extensively quoted)

Tan, Amy - THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES

Turner, George - DROWNING TOWERS

Vine, Barbara (Ruth Rendell) - ANNA'S BOOK (mystery)

Wiebe, Rudy - TEMPTATIONS OF BIG BEAR

Willis, Connie - DOOMSDAY BOOK (set in the future and the middle ages)

Wood, Barbara - THE PROPHETESS

Wright Austin - TONY AND SUSAN (has a woman narrator who is reading a book written by her ex-husband thus imbedding the story he has written into the story of her life...of course, her story is supposed to be real while the one he wrote is supposed to be fictional - fun book to read...)

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First published on the Web: 11/21/2000
Last updated: 11/21/2000