After Battersea Park

Henry G. MacLeod teaches sociology at both Trent University and the
University of Waterloo.

After Battersea Park tells the story of identical twins who are
separated at an early age. After their biological parents part at
Battersea Park in London, England, the twins are adopted. Twenty-three
years later, Curt is a jazz musician living in Sydney, Australia.
William is a Toronto-based visual artist.

The novel is structured as brief, alternating vignettes that explore
the respective paths taken by twins and what happens when they are
reunited. Their strained relationships with girlfriends, their romantic
involvement with older women, and other aspects of their lives raise the
question of biology versus environment and the role of each in the
twins’ destiny.

The short vignettes challenge the reader to fill in the blanks. For
example, the event that starts the action is the suicide of Curt’s
adoptive mother; the reason she takes her life remains, at best,
sketchy. The lack of clear explanations for the characters’ behavior
certainly adds to the book’s realism.

This thought-provoking, humorous, and well-written novel generates and
sustains interest through the mystery of the twins’ parentage and the
reader’s anticipation of their reunion.