Pauline McLynn's ambitious turn

FICTION: The Time is Now,By Pauline McLynn, Headline Review, 312pp, £12.99

READING Pauline McLynn’s ambitious new novel is like watching the pieces of a puzzle slot together with a series of satisfying clicks. It tells the stories of the very different people who have lived in one Soho house, Claxton Court, over the course of several centuries. There’s Sarah, a country girl in the 1850s who has come to London to work as a maid; Karen, a flight attendant in the present day whose best friend has killed himself in the bathroom of her flat; David, an art-loving guard at the National Gallery during the second World War whose marriage is coming apart; Frank, a musician who finds himself playing with a drag-queen band in a Soho club; and Colin, a 22nd-century designer who has attempted to replace his dead twin brother with a clone.

As the novel progresses these stories touch off each other. Not only does the reader discover the connections between one generation of Claxton Court residents and the next, but the characters themselves constantly catch glimpses or hear snatches of the past and the future: a girl in the 19th century hears a song played in the 20th; Karen encounters neighbours who may not be living in the same decade, or indeed century, as her. Other phenomena seem to run through the different generations: there are several sets of twins who have been separated from each other, and more than one character who has synaesthesia, which allows them to see days, words or music in different colours.

With its twins, coincidences, time shifts and delicious touches of magic realism, The Time Is Nowis sometimes reminiscent of Angela Carter, although for the moment McLynn lacks Carter's dazzling ability to transform prose into vividly convincing poetry. McLynn is a gifted writer, and the book regularly throws up lines of striking beauty, but she has a tendency towards over-formality. Some of the narrators sound forced and stilted, not least because they seldom use contractions. At times there's a sense that the author is trying a bit too hard.

And, with one notable exception, the narrative voices also sound a little bit too similar. Multiple narrators can be hard to pull off, but the key, as writers as diverse as Wilkie Collins and Irvine Welsh have shown, is to make each voice instantly recognisable. But in The Time Is Nowthere's not a huge difference between the voices of Karen, the 21st-century air steward, David, the 1940s gallery guard, and Frank, the 1970s drag musician.

The most vivid and distinctive narrative is that of Sarah, the Victorian maid, who discovers her true calling during the terrible cholera outbreak that struck London in 1854. Many authors struggle with historical narrators, but McLynn creates an authentic-sounding 19th century-voice.

In fact, one of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the fact that McLynn realises both Sarah’s world and that of 22nd-century Colin so convincingly. Colin’s London, with its constantly overcast skies, cloning and desperate asylum seekers, is unsettling but not utterly unrecognisable.

Sarah, meanwhile, might encounter more legendary historical figures than is strictly believable – Karl Marx and Florence Nightingale in one week? Impressive – but McLynn brings Victorian Soho to smelly, noisy life.

The Time Is Nowis a fascinating shift for McLynn, who has developed a lot as a writer since her amiable debut, Something for the Weekend, was published, a decade ago. This compelling, intelligent and moving novel bodes well for the future.

Anna Carey is a freelance journalist