The Separation (S.F. MASTERWORKS) Paperback – May 13, 2021

An unusual and unusually well written novel. This is partly an alternative history novel in which Britain and Germany reached a peace agreement in 1941. It is even more a complex psychological novel about the nature of twinship and an exploration of the nature of reality. The nature of the twin experience, the idea of alternative and branching realities, and the interpenetration of dream and reality, are combined in a reflecting and ultmately ambiguous manner. This book could easily be an incoherent mess or a series of shallow gimmicks, but Priest's skill as a writer and his careful research into WWII elevate this book well above the norm. While ostensibly a science fiction novel, this book is one of those rare genre works that deserve mainstream attention.

The Separation traces the lives of two twin brothers—estranged by their quest for separate identities and their convictions—before and during World War II. Jack is a RAF bomber pilot, while Joe is a pacifist and conscientious objector. This is hardly a mere speculative fiction novel though: it does not take you long to figure out that it is simply IMPOSSIBLE for both brothers to exist in the same timeline. As if in line with their convictions, in timeline one, Jack dies, while Joe survives and is instrumental in brokering peace between Germany and England. In the other one—our own—it is Jack that survives and does his bit to help England win the war by brute force.Notorious for his aversion of simple answers and straight lines, Priest can hardly be expected to stop here. Time and again, we get glimpses of inherent contradictions, of crooked reflections, realities that do not fit either of the narratives. For example, the history writer from Joe’s timeline gets a manuscript from Jack’s daughter, Angela, which describes Jack’s life from Jack’s timeline (!), a logical impossibility. To make things further complicated, the manuscript itself makes it absolutely clear that while Jack has an illegitimate daughter called Angela, he only ever sees her once, and she is never aware of his existence (!!).As if this is not enough, characters throughout the novel repeatedly confuse Jack and Joe for the same person and wonder how it is possible for the same man to be both a bomber pilot and a conscientious objector. The frequent use of doubles for the other two central characters of the book, Winston Churchill and Rudolf Hess, underscores the importance of the issue of identity, which is central to all of Priest's work.It is very difficult to pinpoint what is the exact purpose of the novel. Perhaps it is to shed light on how easy it is for small actions to change the course of history and how history itself is not as set in stone as we see it from the point of view of the present. Or perhaps it is the usual mash-up of Priest's favourite topics—the unreliable narrator, the fallibility of perception and memory, the question of identity, the inability to tell dream from reality (the final pages of the novel namely strongly indicate that Joe’s timeline might actually be his dying fantasy rather than an actual alternate reality)—this time taken to a near perfection, with captivating characters, a page-turning story and a mystery that will make you hold your breath until the very end.Now that I have gained some ‘critical mass’ in Priest’s works, it is very easy to see how the ideas in his earlier novels, like, for example, Prestige (identity, the unreliable narrator) and The Affirmation (dream or reality) get their natural continuation in The Separation. And, in turn, how ideas and plot elements in The Separation itself have been developed further in The Adjacent, itself an incredibly confusing kaleidoscope of alternate, semi-overlapping realities.The Separation is easily Priest’s best work to date, with just the right amount of mysterious and playful (straight-forward has never been Priest’s forte), yet without ever getting overly confusing. A clear warning though: if you like stories cut-and-dried and wrapped with clear-cut conclusions, this is most definitely not your book, and Priest is, without a doubt, a writer you should steer clear of.

I admired the premise of this book for its originality and moral initiative. Beyond that, I think that it goes too far in the complexity of its plot--a constant rehashing of the same events that makes Rashamon look like a unified Greek chorus. Most of the time I was thoroughly confused by the chronology of events and their veracity. "Lucid imaginings" is the term used over and over again by one of the principal characters, which really turns out to be elaborate hallucinations. With the conclusion of the book, I wasn't entirely sure how it ended as so many alternatives had been presented along the way.Perhaps the whole saga was a kind of wishful thinking by the author who opines a conclusion to WWII that leaves Britain as a great power (presumably with empire in tact) through the 1990s. At the same time, the U.S. has sunk to continuing economic depression and increasing political authoritarianism.In any event, while there are things to admire in the narrative writing of this book, I can't say that I really enjoyed much of it.

The Separation is an alternate history novel by a good writer. Those who wallow in shallow examples of this sub-genre -- the books of Harry Turtledove, for instance -- will not care for this at all. What we have in this work is at least two (maybe more?) different histories presented in such a way that we weave back and forth from one to the other. Pieces fit together locally, but not globally, as in some of the art of M.C. Escher. The most extreme example would be the characters of Stuart Gratton and Angela Chipperton, who, if I'm reading the book correctly, could not exist together in the same place and yet do, briefly. There is some repetition, particularly at the beginning, but as I see it that is important to the manner in which the story is presented, as a tale told and retold, not always in the same way. One could argue that the book is a little too long in the middle, but I am normally a slow reader and yet finished the novel rather quickly. This is intelligent, challenging alternate history. Its one flaw, which is perhaps inherent, is that it really is a parallel universe novel, with the relationship between the worlds unclear -- "it was just a dream" is one way to interpret the story, an aspect I find just a little unsatisfying, and the reason for four stars rather than five. Highly recommended.