How influential is a name? This is the question underpinning The Names, which opens with Cora taking her newborn son to register his birth. Her abusive husband Gordon wants his son to be named after him, though, secretly, Cora isn’t keen. She notes how the second syllable lands with “a downward thud like someone slamming down a sports bag”. She prefers Julian, which means “sky father”, though their nine-year-old daughter Maia would like her little brother to be called Bear, since it sounds “soft and cuddly … but also brave and strong”.
Florence Knapp’s smart debut novel features a Sliding Doors-style plot in which the three names are tried out for size, each triggering a different reality. By defying her husband and choosing Bear, Cora is subjected to a beating that prompts a neighbour to intervene and call the police; when she names him Julian, young Maia steps in to defend her mother and break the tension. And when she registers him as Gordon, peace is maintained but not for long; when Cora asks for money to buy baby formula, her husband dispenses a different style of punishment. The repercussions of her decision are felt by their son, too, whose lives under the different names are traced across three decades.
The narrator Dervla Kirwan deftly navigates the book’s parallel realities, drawing out the lyricism and vividness of Knapp’s prose. Although the narrative occasionally strains under the weight of its structure, it nonetheless reveals how it is not so much a name that influences a person’s life than the actions and character of those who raise them.
• Available via Phoenix, 9hr 41min
Further listening
We All Live Here
Jojo Moyes, Penguin Audio, 12hr 38min
Jenna Coleman narrates Moyes’s family drama revolving around single mother Lila, who lives with her two daughters, Celie and Violet, her elderly stepfather, Bill, plus the family dog, Truant. Their lives are thrown into disarray when Lila’s estranged father appears out of the blue.
The Tell
Amy Griffin, Penguin Audio, 7hr 40min
Griffin, a former venture capitalist and friend to the stars, reads her poignant memoir chronicling a traumatic childhood in west Texas and her subsequent journey of self-discovery through psychedelic therapy.
