Novels with past and present (but not time travel)

December 6, 2023 8:43 AM

I'm looking for literary fiction in which the book is narrated in the present, but there is also a significant story that takes place in the past. Please no genre fiction or dystopian futures.

"The Remains of the Day" is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. "Mrs. Dalloway" would also work. What else? Classics are especially welcome. Looking for books that are extremely well written. I'm a complete snob about literature, and I don't feel bad about it.

posted by FencingGal to Media & Arts (61 answers total)

H is for Hawk isn't a novel but it reads like one and it weaves together a couple of stories in an amazing way. How do authors do that without the reader getting totally lost? Anyway, it's one of my favorite books and I think you'd like it!
posted by dawkins_7 at 8:51 AM on December 6, 2023

If you like Kazuo Ishiguro, try When We Were Orphans. Takes place in the present but the past is what drives the whole story. It's my favorite novel of all time but fair warning: many people seem to not like it because it's all understated, vague, dreamlike (or perhaps nightmare-like) in typical Ishiguro style but with an extra dash of inscrutability compared to his other works.

Also Ishiguro: A Pale View of Hills is absolutely phenomenal, much more straightforward Ishiguro fare (no weird dreamlike episodes like in When We Were Orphans)with an incredible twist ending. As always Ishiguro is understated but still manages to deliver devastating endings in the simplest ways and the fewest words.

Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is a propulsive and touching and at times terrifying read that jumps from present to past and back again like children playing hopscotch. It's about a woman and her twin children who move back to the mother's native town in rural Kerala (south India) after her husband abandons her, and we start the novel when the twins are adults but skip constantly back to one pivotal summer in the twins' childhood which brought them to this present.

Toni Morrison's Beloved is all about the past haunting the characters' present... literally haunting them, even. As someone who had never even heard of Morrison before reading this book, it felt like a fucking punch in my gut, holy shit, the writing was incredible, the plot moved in such sinuous concentric circles where we'd get ever closer to catching a glimpse of what really happened in the past from just one particular angle, and the ending, fuuuuuuck, I am still not recovered from it.
posted by MiraK at 8:53 AM on December 6, 2023

Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt? Two modern-day academics research the paper trail around the previously unknown love life between famous Victorian (fictional) poets.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:56 AM on December 6, 2023

If you like Kazuo Ishiguro,

So funny, I came in here to mention Never Let Me Go by the same author!
posted by mochapickle at 8:56 AM on December 6, 2023

I may be misremembering the structure, but perhaps The Overstory by Richard Powers?
posted by subwaytiles at 9:12 AM on December 6, 2023

George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss fits this, it's narrated from the 1860s or so but the story takes place in the 1820s - 30s. And there is a kind of lovely nostalgic tone in the writing...a wonderful classic.
posted by cpatterson at 9:17 AM on December 6, 2023

> came in here to mention Never Let Me Go by the same author!

That's a dystopian future, though, and OP ruled those out!
posted by MiraK at 9:18 AM on December 6, 2023

The Sea by John Banville. Ageing narrator visits his childhood summer holiday home; relives personal tragedies and looks for meaning.

I read 5 John Banville books this year. He’s definitely (almost self-consciously) “literary”.
posted by Ted Maul at 9:19 AM on December 6, 2023

For that matter, The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch might also suit you.

Both novels won the Booker Prize.

Why not try both and “sea” if you like them! 👌
posted by Ted Maul at 9:21 AM on December 6, 2023

How about L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between?
posted by bcwinters at 9:26 AM on December 6, 2023

> came in here to mention Never Let Me Go by the same author!

That's a dystopian future, though, and OP ruled those out!

Oh, foo. Okay, I'll replace that with Atonement by Ian McEwan. Beautifully written and one of my favorite books ever, and it broke my heart into the same pieces that Remains of the Day did years before.
posted by mochapickle at 9:41 AM on December 6, 2023

Copperhead by Alexi Zentner (not Barbara Kingsolver's book with a similar name).
posted by Dolley at 9:43 AM on December 6, 2023

How to Be Both by Ali Smith - shortlisted for Booker Prize. "The story is told from two perspectives: those of George, a pedantic 16-year-old girl living in contemporary Cambridge, and Francesco del Cossa, an Italian renaissance artist responsible for painting a series of frescoes in the 'Hall of the Months' at the Palazzo Schifanoia (translated as the 'Palace of Not Being Bored' in the novel) in Ferrara, Italy. Two versions of the book were published simultaneously, one in which George's story appears first, the other in which Francesco's comes first." Ali Smith is a powerhouse writer.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai - part is set in Chicago in 1985 during the beginning of the AIDS crisis, part is 30 years later, and it's also woven in with a whole story about WWI. I think the structure of this book is extraordinary. The writing is not flashy though.
posted by vunder at 9:50 AM on December 6, 2023

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
posted by BibiRose at 10:00 AM on December 6, 2023

Midnight's Children by Rushdie might fit the bill if you haven't already read it.

I often recommend The Leavers by Lisa Ko because it's really stuck with me - it doesn't go deep in the past, but it does reveal the life history of one of the older characters in the second half of the book.

Not a dystopian future, but it does involve a bleak past - The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Jumps between the present and past (1960s). (On preview the above comment beat me to it - but I'll still co-sign!)
posted by coffeecat at 10:01 AM on December 6, 2023

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
posted by BibiRose at 10:05 AM on December 6, 2023

Anything by Beatriz Williams will have a present day story with threads to the past.
posted by notjustthefish at 10:10 AM on December 6, 2023

Ann Patchett frequently writes novels of this type: Tom Lake, The Dutch House, Commonwealth.

Otherwise, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Sarai Walker's The Cherry Robbers, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
posted by urbanlenny at 10:24 AM on December 6, 2023

Robertson Davies' Cornish Trilogy might work for you.
posted by sardonyx at 10:36 AM on December 6, 2023

Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang has different time periods in it but to say anything else would risk spoiling something beautiful.

Nominally a sci-fi story (it's the basis for the Arrival film with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner) but Chiang defies pigeon-holing and has a philosopher's heart. It's a novella that won't take you long to read and it's well worth the small investment of time. He's a fabulous writer.
posted by underclocked at 10:49 AM on December 6, 2023

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami but I don't know if this counts as genre fiction
posted by glenngulia at 10:52 AM on December 6, 2023

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett fits your criteria. It’s a book that is much more character driven then plot driven, so it would depend if you like that style.
posted by sillysally at 11:01 AM on December 6, 2023

Holy moly, put Possession by AS Byatt on the top of your list. Just an extraordinary novel.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:12 AM on December 6, 2023

Annie Proulx's Barkskins is pretty amazing - great sweeping historical story of North America, Indigenous and immigrant communities, and trees.
posted by pantarei70 at 11:18 AM on December 6, 2023

A lot of recent books meet this. The Wren, The Wren by Enright, Tom Lake by Pratchett, I think Hello Beautiful by Napolitano, are a few I read just this year. Wellness by Hill as well.
posted by ch1x0r at 11:20 AM on December 6, 2023

If plays are acceptable as well as novels, I would immediately suggest Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia”.
posted by sesquipedalia at 11:20 AM on December 6, 2023

I just finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and it has what your looking for in spades.
posted by ailouros08 at 11:20 AM on December 6, 2023

I'm currently reading Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, which takes place in two timelines: present-day and 1939. It's very compelling and, as an added bonus, the 1939 timeline is based on a true story.
posted by DrGail at 11:21 AM on December 6, 2023

Maybe not literary enough for your taste, but Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time is great fun. It's about a police officer investigating Richard III's alledged crimes from his hospital bed.
posted by rjs at 11:23 AM on December 6, 2023

The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
posted by vunder at 11:25 AM on December 6, 2023

They're kind of soapy, but Kate Morton's books all do this.
posted by girlbowler at 11:31 AM on December 6, 2023

Greenwood by Michael Christie does this, and I really enjoyed it. There is a bit of a Cli-Fi element to it, but it's primarily a family saga.
posted by eekernohan at 11:36 AM on December 6, 2023

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.
posted by Spinneret at 12:14 PM on December 6, 2023

The Lost Apothecary
posted by Thorzdad at 12:23 PM on December 6, 2023

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty. It's very, very good.
posted by trig at 12:56 PM on December 6, 2023

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
posted by zadcat at 1:41 PM on December 6, 2023

I Have Some Questions for you by Rebecca Makkai is a contemporary person investigating the past death of a fellow student at her boarding school. It's literary fiction and I think has something to say in general, but is also slightly pulpy.
posted by vunder at 1:53 PM on December 6, 2023

The Ballad of Frankie Silver
posted by Sassyfras at 2:18 PM on December 6, 2023

Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood (not set in same universe as Handmaid's Tale )
posted by freethefeet at 2:40 PM on December 6, 2023

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
posted by polecat at 2:52 PM on December 6, 2023

San Miguel by TC Boyle. Beautiful and rough and lacking the smarm that his earlier stuff is drowning in (in my humble opinion).
posted by queensissy at 3:27 PM on December 6, 2023

The Rainbow and The Rose by Nevil Shute. 'The present' in this novel is the 1950s, when he wrote it, but significant elements of the story are related in flashbacks to WWI.
posted by Rash at 3:28 PM on December 6, 2023

The Book of Air and Shadows,
The Forgery of Venus both by Michael Gruber.
Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott.
posted by supermedusa at 3:30 PM on December 6, 2023

The Daughter of Time is an interesting example, a person convalescing and essentially going deep into a historical event and piecing together a theory on how it might have played out. It's not historically accurate technically but a really fun read. It might superficially count as mystery genre book but it really isn't one.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:57 PM on December 6, 2023

Margaret Atwood does this very frequently! Cat’s Eye has already been recommended, but I think The Blind Assassin, The Robber Bride, and Alias Grace all have elements of it as well. She very frequently uses the general format of having two story-lines, past and present, working their way toward explaining each other over the course of the novel. Some of those, Alias Grace most strongly, could be classified as historical fiction, but they’re not the sort of speculative fiction of things like Oryx and Crake.
posted by duien at 4:42 PM on December 6, 2023

World's End, another T C Boyle book (I think it's his second novel, back when he used his full middle name). I read it back in the 90s, but recall that it takes place in two separate time periods in the 1600/1700s, and one in the present, all in New York's Hudson Valley, with ties connecting the main characters across those time periods.

I found it stunning. If I didn't have so many books toppling off that bedside table, I'd reread it now.
posted by morspin at 7:10 PM on December 6, 2023

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich really, really foregrounds this and is a stunning literary novel.
posted by ojocaliente at 7:55 PM on December 6, 2023

Also -- for classics being especially welcome: This is is not just one feature of Wuthering Heights but basically what it is about.
posted by ojocaliente at 8:02 PM on December 6, 2023

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead.
posted by uncaken at 8:11 PM on December 6, 2023

Hmmm... not sure it fits all your categories exactly, but Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water came to mind.
posted by inexorably_forward at 10:12 PM on December 6, 2023

People of the Book
posted by one for the books at 12:43 AM on December 7, 2023

The Professor's House. Willa Cather departed significantly from her main plot to the past life of a remembered character.
posted by Elsie at 6:10 AM on December 7, 2023

Old Filth by Jane Gardam. The blurb: "Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong) to his final working days as a respected judge at the English bar. Yet through it all he has carried with him the wounds of a difficult childhood. Now an eighty-year-old widower living in comfortable seclusion in Dorset, Feathers is finally free from the regimen of work and the sentimental scaffolding that has sustained him throughout his life. He slips back into the past with ever mounting frequency and intensity, and on the tide of these vivid, lyrical musings, Feathers approaches a reckoning with his own history. Not all the old filth, it seems, can be cleaned away."
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:30 AM on December 7, 2023

I think the Neapolitan novels, by Elena Ferrante, would fit the bill. Start with My Brilliant Friend.
posted by PussKillian at 7:29 AM on December 7, 2023

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 8:35 AM on December 7, 2023

Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread is a beautifully written character study which features three distinct time periods.
posted by h00py at 3:57 AM on December 8, 2023

Most of Fiona Davis's books would fit the bill.
posted by SisterHavana at 8:47 PM on December 8, 2023

The House of Stairs by Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell is an example of Rendell's standalone fiction that really belies her categorization as a mystery writer. Scott Turow once remarked that if Rendell had not been characterized that way, she would certainly have won a Booker Prize. The House of Stairs has a dual timeline and all the marks of literary fiction. The plot is in part based on The Wings of the Dove by James. (When Rendell borrows form other authors, she is actually having a conversation with them-- to me, a sign of really good literary fiction.) The dual timeline is also featured in A Fatal Inversion, A Dark-Adapted Eye, No Night is Too Long, The Chimney-Sweeper's Boy and Asta's Book-- and those are just the first ones that come to mind.

I feel as if Rendell is very undervalued in the US and it's partly because she does so many different things. Crime fanatics don't expect the books to be literary, and fans of literary fiction don't trust mystery writers. Strangely, I think that if she had only written the books I just listed, she would have a banging literary reputation.
posted by BibiRose at 6:54 AM on December 9, 2023

Ooh, if you're okay with a play, then Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. (Never mind, I see this comment has already been made almost verbatim!)
posted by trig at 7:20 AM on December 9, 2023

I must have been pondering this question subconsciously, because the line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…" popped into my mind just now, and although Daphne du Maurier isn;t held in the highest regard as a literary writer, the book Rebecca is certainly about the past's impact on the present.
posted by zadcat at 7:19 AM on December 11, 2023

Oh but Rebecca is amazing! Beautifully written IMO, and definitely counts as high quality literary fiction. I'm surprised to hear that du Maurier isn't reagrded as a literary writer. Wow.
posted by MiraK at 12:50 PM on December 12, 2023