Six Lives

LoveReading Says

Traversing the globe — London, Lima, Cork, Devon, Cairo, and New York — and centuries, from 1855 to 2012, Lavie Tidhar’s Six Lives is a magnificent matryoshka of a novel. Presenting six stories about fascinating individuals who are bound by blood and a shared desire to be free from the ties of birth, Tidhar’s writing is alchemical, smouldering with his characters’ passions, ambitions and frustrations as it shifts genres, from murder mystery to spy thriller, and more.

We meet the first of the Feebes clan in 1855, when Edward travels to Lima to investigate a problem with his family’s guano business. Then there’s Annie. A Cork corpse photographer who, on finding herself unmarried, pregnant and alone at the age of 26, blackmails her way to America as the Titanic awaits. Next, we shift to a 1930’s country house murder mystery, a KGB spy thriller, a 1980s actor reviewing her life, and a 21st-century heiress whose freedom from ancestral weight might just come in the wake of loss.

Spellbinding and smart, measured and fierily evocative, Six Lives is an immensely satisfying achievement.

Joanne Owen

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