When Past and Present Collide: Novels with Dual-Timeline Narratives

When past and present collide: Novels with dual-timeline narratives

by Ann Gosslin

In life – and in fiction – I’ve long been intrigued by the effect of a difficult or traumatic childhood on an individual’s psyche and sense of self. It should come as no surprise that I am drawn not only to character-driven novels, but those that offer a window into the main character’s early years. 

In real life, none of us is dropped onto the world stage as a fully formed adult. We are all products of our upbringing, as well as the countless experiences that have formed our identity. Since fiction typically reflects real life, a key character may come across as ‘flat’ or unconvincing, if the reader has little or no information about their life prior to the action in the novel. Was the character raised by a loving family? Or was she abandoned at birth and forced to grow up in an orphanage or a foster home?

Even if a character has avoided such extreme circumstances, most fictional characters will have had their share of life’s important milestones, such as falling in love, getting a job, and dealing with loss. All these events – good or bad, in fiction or in life – contribute to an individual’s character and temperament. Thus, the techniques an author chooses to weave past events into a present-day story can result in a variety of narrative components. 

Flashbacks, letters, diaries, reminisces from other characters, and dual-time narratives are just some of the ways to shine a light on the past. I’ve always enjoyed stories that use letters and diaries to provide a glimpse of a character’s earlier life, but they need to be used judiciously, or risk becoming a static feature of the narrative or – worse – gimmicky and superfluous. Lengthy flashbacks might seem like a good option, but they tend to slow down the present-day narrative, or even – if they go on too long – bring the story to a screeching halt. 

A dual-timeline narrative, depending on the story, may offer the perfect solution. Particularly for thrillers, where pacing is important, or in historical fiction, set in the past, where a dual-time narrative can add intrigue and modern-day relevance, by providing a window into the present. When it comes to pacing, a key feature of dual timelines is their ability to ‘turn the past into the present’, and backstory, rather than slowing the pace, comes alive when narrated in the present tense.

Megan Abbott uses this strategy to great effect in her novel Give me your Hand, a psychological thriller about the dark side of female friendship. When two friends (and rivals) reunite as adults, the tension mounts as they compete for prestige and success as researchers in the same lab. Abbott skilfully juxtaposes the women’s past and present relationships by employing a dual-timeline narrative. Alternate chapters, titled ‘Now’ and ‘Then’, are both written in the present tense, even though the dual-timeline events occur several years apart. Such a narrative strategy allows the author to narrate events that occurred in the past, as if they were happening in the present. A technique that ratchets up the tension and revs up the pace.

A historical novel with a dual-time narrative might label the foreground chapters as ‘present day’, while the backstory chapters are given a date, such as May 1945 or September 1968, with both narratives told in the present tense for greater immediacy. Anthony’s Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See, provides the reader with various snapshots of events that take place in France and Germany during World War II, with various scenes set in 1934, 1944, and 1974. The final chapter, set in 2014, functions as an extended epilogue, which connects the narrative threads – and the various characters – that began in 1934 and ended eighty years later.

Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, Sarah Penner’s The Lost Apothecary, and Jessie Burton’s The Muse, are other masterful examples of multi-layered historical novels in which a dual-time narrative provides a rich tapestry of intrigue and complexity to the characters and the overall storyline.

When I began drafting my debut novel, The Shadow Bird, in which a psychiatrist, Erin Cartwright, is asked to evaluate a patient, Tim Stern, who’s been in a psychiatric facility for 27 years for the murdering his mother and two sisters, I explored several possibilities for providing readers with details of Tim’s life before the crime. A dual-timeline appealed to me because, as a suspense novel, pacing was important. Moreover, I’ve always been drawn to stories in which the reader knows things the protagonist doesn’t. Talk about nail-biting tension! As a reader, I find it thrilling to know details about characters and events the protagonist isn’t aware of, almost as if I’m an invisible character in the story. 

As Erin tries to uncover the events of that terrible night in 1977, all she can do is dig for clues and talk to people who knew Tim in the past. What she doesn’t know about are the key events in Tim’s life before the murders. Most of the novel takes place in the ‘present day’, and is narrated in the past tense in Erin’s third person POV. The remaining sections take place in 1977 and are told in the present tense in Tim’s POV. Thus, it is the reader (not Erin) who has access to Tim’s state of mind leading up to the murders, which creates a certain literary frisson. The reader, who knows more about the case than Erin, can’t help but wonder: will she ever discover the truth? 

At the beginning of my second novel, The Double, Vidor Kiraly, an eminent neuroscientist and Cambridge don attacks a stranger at an awards ceremony. When he is sent to a private psychiatric clinic in the Swiss Alps for evaluation, his doctor, Anton Gessen, begins to suspect that his reluctant patient is not who he claims to be. To create insight into Vidor’s past, I made use of flashbacks, letters, and patient transcripts. But it was only later, after several drafts, that I added a dual-time narrative, one facet of which takes place forty years in the past and involves an unnamed character who leaves his small village for the bright lights of Paris. These ‘past in the present’ sections provide the reader (but not Dr Gessen) with clues about the identity (or do they?) of Gessen’s mysterious patient.

If you’re a fan of complexity and intrigue, for your next read, consider a novel with a dual-time narrative for a panoramic, multi-layered, and time-bending view of the characters and their fictional world.

—

Ann Gosslin spent the early part of her life in the US, before heeding the call of distant shores and eventually settling in Europe. The Shadow Bird was Ann’s debut novel. Her second novel, The Double, was published by Legend Press in July 2021. With a lifelong interest in psychology and psychiatry, Ann is fascinated by the dark (and often hidden) sides of human nature.

Follow her on Twitter @GosslinAnn

Find out more about her on her website http://anngosslin.com/

The Double, Ann Gosslin

‘A completely engrossing read! I found Ann’s writing compelling, elegant and convincing, and the story pulled me in and totally transported me.’ Katherine Webb, best-selling author of The Legacy and The Disappearance

Following a violent outburst at an awards ceremony, Vidor Kiraly, a prize-winning neuroscientist and Cambridge don, is sent to an isolated psychiatric clinic in the Swiss Alps.

When the clinic’s director, Anton Gessen, tries in vain to unearth the missing pieces of Vidor’s life, he suspects his reluctant patient is not who he appears to be.

After one of the patients at the clinic goes missing, Gessen has reason to doubt Vidor’s self-proclaimed innocence. But what is he hiding, and who might be next?

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