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The Names

Three names, three lives, one decision.
Reading guide
This is a single novel, so there is no reading order to follow; simply begin at the opening, where Cora reaches the registrar's desk.
The novel opens in 1987, in the aftermath of a great storm, as Cora sets out to register her son's birth with her daughter at her side. Her husband expects the boy to take his name, and the choice she makes in that moment shapes the lives that follow. The story then traces three possible versions of the boy, each shaped by a different name, and asks what a family can change and what it can endure.

Description

In 1987, after a great storm, Cora takes her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her newborn son. Her husband expects the boy to carry his name, as the men of his family always have, and at the registrar's desk Cora hesitates, knowing that defying him will come at a cost. Florence Knapp's debut follows that single moment down three paths.

Seven years on, the boy is Bear, named by his sister; Julian, the name his mother longed to give him; or Gordon, raised in his cruel father's image. Set within a marriage shadowed by control and violence, each version asks what a name can set in motion and whether a pattern can be broken. The blurb describes the novel as powerfully moving and full of hope, and it will stay with anyone who has wondered how one decision might have changed everything.

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