“The book is a repository for the past,” Kate Atkinson once remarked about her début work. “The book is, in its own way, my own museum.” Few literary novelists are as obsessed with the past—as a place, an archive, and a storehouse.
The narrator of that book—“Behind the Scenes at the Museum”—like Atkinson was born in 1951 and grew up the daughter of a shopkeeper. All of Atkinson’s books are repositories, including her object-obsessed new novel, “Our Noble Selves,” which was released last week. Her fiction is cluttered with bric-a-brac, bits and bobs, stuffed into boxes and drawers and cupboards—remnants of someone’s past. (A mere two pages of “Behind the Scenes” contains the inventory of a small suitcase: “a pair of winceyette pyjamas, a toothbrush and flannel, a pair of ruby-red slippers, five pairs of knickers, a vest, a liberty bodice, two viyella blouses, a kilt, a corduroy pinafore-dress, a pair of tartan trews, two hand-knitted jumpers . . .”)
“Our Noble Selves” is set in the year of Atkinson’s birth, and follows Harry Flynn and his colleagues as they prepare for the Festival of Britain, a government-run celebration aimed at restoring the British spirit in the aftermath of the loss and destruction of the Second World War. Harry works in the Department of Rooms, where his job is to track down items from the past for various displays of British life. For the kitchen showcase: “measuring cups and spoons, plate racks, table mats, condiment sets, soufflé dishes, whistling kettles” and a “Spong’s No. 100 household mincer.” Much turns on the baking of a festival cake. If you haven’t read Atkinson before, don’t start with “Our Noble Selves.” Harry tries to solve a murder of which he’s been accused, but the mystery comes across as an afterthought. I recommend, instead, that you take your first visit to the museum of Atkinson with her popular “Life After Life,” in which the narrator begins her existence in the early twentieth century over and over again.
Atkinson, who represents the collector so well, is herself a collector—of genres. She writes domestic novels; she writes war novels. She is also a deft writer of detective fiction, beginning with her 2004 book, “Case Histories.” And, if a character developed late in “Our Noble Selves” is any clue, Atkinson may soon be a writer of spy fiction. I expect lovingly described I.D. badges, era-specific surveillance gadgets, and an eclectic assortment of silencers.
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