“You Can’t Have It All, Sister”

In this paper I will argue that the dual temporalities featured in Cynthia Swanson’s The Bookseller and in Jo Walton’s My Real Children convey the fragmented selves of their protagonists and reveal the economic, political, and sociocultural constrains that shape their life as women. The similarities between both novels deserve a comparative analysis that investigates the ontological implications of a split self apparently living in two different timelines at once, where the figure of the double does not menace the original self but motivates an empowering reevaluation of her choices. These alternate and alternative (hi)stories are a form of gender resistance to the limited, and often conflicting, options available to women and the sacrifices involved in each act of choosing. The novels’ dual timelines serve the purpose of examining women’s subjectivity as well as traditional understandings of gender attributes and roles.