Sliding Doors Revisited

The Post-Birthday World: Lionel Shriver, 2007


In this, Shriver's ninth book, we meet Irina McGovern, a children's story illustrator who is content in her life with her common law husband Lawrence Trainer. While Lawrence is away at conference in Sarajevo Irina meets up with their mutual friend, Ramsey Acton a star snooker player, for their annual dinner for his birthday. By meeting up with Ramsey, Irina is faced with a decision can ultimately change her life. If she proceeds to follow her instincts and kiss Ramsey the life that she and Lawrence have created will be destroyed and if she doesn't she will continue on the path that they have created for themselves. With this decision the book fractures and we as the reader get to experience both of the consequences of the choice.

I found this book to be slow to get into in the beginning as well as being mildly repetitive as we read both sides of the same instance consecutively. For example, when Irina is with Ramsey and they go to New York for an awards dinner for which she has been nominated. Ramsey picks a fight with her despite her win and she misses her name being called, much to her embarrassment and chagrin. While on the other side, when Irina is with Lawrence she is again nominated at the same awards dinner, she does not win and the woman who does, Jude, is married to Ramsey and they get involved in an argument and Jude then misses her name being called juts like Irina would have. It is moments like this that seem far fetched and unbelievable. Understandably there would be some overlap and some similarities but the more there are the less I buy the story itself. Undeniably there are also similarities to the 90s chick flick Sliding Doors with Gweneth Paltrow. This is not a bad comparison because I personally loved that movie and the idea that one little action or choice can completely alter your life.


Shriver is a skilled author, and her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, which was published just previous to this one is a testament to that as it won Orange Ptrize, a UK based women's award for outstanding writing in English. While this novel is not quite as spectacular and moving as that one, it is a wonderful and enticing read.This book is long, about 500 pages, but well worth it once you get into it and past the life changing decision Irina makes. Anyone looking for a book to get lost in and who isn't daunted by the number of pages will find this interesting and entertaining.

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