Five best novels featuring what-if “Sliding Doors” narratives

Sung J. Woo's short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, PEN/Guernica, and Vox. He has written five novels, Lines (2024), Deep Roots (2023), Skin Deep (2020), Love Love (2015), and Everything Asian (2009), which won the 2010 Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Award. In 2022, his Modern Love essay from The New York Times was adapted by Amazon Studios for episodic television. A graduate of Cornell University with an MFA from New York University, he lives in Washington, New Jersey.

[Coffee with a Canine: Sung J. Woo & Koda; The Page 69 Test: Everything Asian; My Book, The Movie: Skin Deep; Q&A with Sung J. Woo; The Page 69 Test: Skin Deep; My Book, The Movie: Deep Roots; The Page 69 Test: Deep Roots; Writers Read: Sung J. Woo (September 2023); The Page 69 Test: Lines; My Book, The Movie: Lines; Writers Read: Sung J. Woo]

At Shepherd Woo tagged five novels featuring what-if Sliding Doors narratives, including:

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

This was the first Sliding Doors-esque novel I read, and it’s a doozy. The book spins off a single moment: will Irina kiss Ramsey, the professional pool player? That action forks the novel into two distinct threads, but there are constant pleasant echoes that reverberate back and forth.

I’ve always believed the greatest draw for reading fiction is that we get to live someone else’s life. In a split narrative, we get to do that twice! Two for the price of one.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Post-Birthday World is among Sonja Lyubomirsky's six favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue