The Names by Florence Knapp

A Novel

Title: The Names
Author: Florence Knapp
Publisher: Pam Dorman Books
Publication Year: 2025
ISBN: 9780593833902
Rating: 5 stars

---

A few things I need to get out of the way before we start this review:

1. I need to give some trigger warnings for this book. It deals with topics like domestic violence, family dysfunction, trauma, death, and the pandemic. While I normally don’t like reading about two of those topics in particular, if at all possible for you, I highly suggest you don’t let that stop you from reading this book.

2. This book comes out today and I highly recommend going to your closest bookstore and buying it before even finishing this review. It is that good. If you are only a library user, put a hold on it now because I think once people start to get their hands on it, there is going to be a long wait for this book.

3. I did get an ARC of this book through the Employee Ambassador Program at work, but there was no requirement to review it. After reading it, however, I can’t live my life without telling people about this book, so I’m reviewing it of my own free will.

   ---

Shakespeare’s “What’s in a name?” is probably one of the most oft quoted lines in the English language and to quote W.C. Fields, “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” Yet, despite these dismissals, a name is usually one of the first things a person gets in this world and it continues to be an important part of their identity up until they leave this world. That’s not to say names don’t change. We constantly retitle and redefine ourselves to better fit our social milieu, our gender identity, our stage of life, etc. What you were called as an infant may not be what you were called as a teenager or what you are called as an adult. However, many can’t help but wonder if any of those names impacts their lives in other ways. Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue is just one of the instances in pop culture where the impact of a person’s name on their life is explored, and while the song takes a humorous look at the phenomenon, a name can have serious impacts.

In terms of the author’s name this is Florence Knapp’s debut novel, so if you haven’t heard of her it’s probably because her previous nonfiction titles were on somewhat niche topics. I think that is about to change. I think this book is going to make Knapp a household name and I am already longing to see what she comes up with next.

This book opens in October of 1987 with Cora Atkin’s husband Gordon telling her to go to the registrar’s office and file their new son’s birth certificate. This is a task Cora has been dreading because she will have to legally name her son. Because she was a girl, naming their nine-year-old daughter, Maia, had come easy for Cora and Gordon. However, this time around, with their son, things are a little complicated. Gordon takes it for granted that their son should be named Gordon—after him and after his own father. However, Cora worries that naming her son after her violent and abusive husband will doom him to becoming just like his father, and that is something she does not want for her son. As she and Maia walk to the registrar, Cora turns this dilemma over in her head. Gordon has given her no other option but to name him Gordon. Maia says if it were up to her, she would pick the name Bear for the baby—something soft and cuddly but also brave and strong. Cora likes the name Julian, which means sky father, so she would still technically be naming him in honor of Gordon. She thinks she knows which option would keep them all the most safe, but she isn’t sure that she is willing to risk her son’s future as yet another sacrifice to placate her husband. They get to the office and the clerk asks Cora what name to put on the birth certificate.

Here the story breaks into three branches: one where Cora names the baby Bear, one where Cora names the baby Julian, and one where Cora names the baby Gordon on that fateful day in 1987. The story follows Cora home and through the immediate aftermath of that decision. From there, each part of the book checks in with the Atkin family every seven years until 2022. While technically the same child, Bear, Julian, and Gordon all have different personalities, different sensitivities, and different lives. They make different choices, have different jobs, end up with different partners, and deal with the history of the domestic violence in their family in different ways. The lives of Cora, Maia, and Gordon as well as other friends and family all look different in each of these storylines.

I really hate to make any comparisons between this gorgeous novel and something I wanted to chuck out a window, but this novel was everything I wanted Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us to be when I had to read it for one of my book clubs. Like Hoover’s Lily Bloom, Knapp’s Cora is a little more artistic and a little less solid and sure of herself than her male partner. Like Lily Bloom (I keep using both of her names 1. because that’s a ridiculous name and 2. because there is also a character named Lily in The Names and I don’t want to confuse them), Cora excuses the early red flags in her relationship to give her partner the benefit of the doubt. Hoover’s male main character, Ryle Kincaid, is an abusive partner who is a well liked doctor, which makes it hard for people to believe Lily Bloom when she talks about her abuse and who is abusive because of a tragic backstory in his family of origin. Likewise, Gordon Atkin, the father, is a well loved doctor who has a very different public persona than his personality at home. His own tragic family backstory is also cited as the reason he became abusive. However, where the books diverge is that to me, It Ends With Us, seems to sympathize with the abuser and Ryle is mostly excused from his actions because of that tragic backstory. In fact, Lily even agrees to co-parent their daughter with him because Ryle is a “good father.” Knapp does not try to sugar coat the fact that there is no way someone can regularly violently physically assault their romantic partner and be a good parent. She is not a domestic violence apologist and despite being open about how hard Gordon’s life has been, she never uses that to excuse him for physically and psychologically torturing his wife. Throughout this book, Gordon gets exactly the amount of sympathy he deserves and doesn’t come out of the story with a good guy rep like Ryle does.

The book explores ideas of identity, choice, personal responsibility, overcoming trauma, and family ties (both of biological family and found family). I thought the writing was gorgeous and Knapp perfectly captures the way joy and heartbreak always make an appearance in every life. While there are three different storylines—some that initially seem happy and some that initially seem sad, Knapp does a beautiful job at weaving true happiness and true loss and sadness into each storyline. None of the characters truly triumph over others—they all get their share of easy and hard, joy and suffering. Other than Gordon the father, (who doesn’t deserve it) all of the characters make mistakes but have room to grow and make choices that lead to their own redemption. None of them are perfect, but all of them are believable and lovable (it just takes a little longer for some). This book is emotionally difficult to read in several parts and I did have to set it down to take a break a few times, but I was so invested and cared so deeply about these characters that I couldn’t help but pick it back up again. I cried a lot while reading it, but I felt lighter and cleansed in a way when I was done. Like I said above, I normally won’t read books about domestic violence and I don’t love fiction that deals with the pandemic, so I was hesitant to approach this book, but I am so glad that I did.

Something else that I think is really cool about this book is that there are essentially two ways to read it. There is the way it is published: starting with the prologue set in October 1987 and then moving into part 1 about general 1987 which has a chapter for each of the boys and moving through the subsequent parts set in different years and thus reading what is happening to each boy simultaneously in that year and comparing their lives that way. Or you can start with the prologue and then pick one boy and read just his chapter in each of the parts divided up by time throughout the book so that you are reading just one life story at a time (that is a little complicated to explain if you haven’t looked at the book, so I hope it makes sense). This time around, I read the book exactly as it is published in order of time, not in order of boy, but when I reread it (which I feel certain I will) I may read it one boy at a time just to see how that changes my understanding. Because mostly the same characters populate all three storylines, it can be a little confusing keeping all of the details straight, but all three of the storylines have such distinct vibes and each boy has such a distinct personality, that it wasn’t a constant problem until I was trying to think back on the book as a whole and remember small details. In a way, it kind of feels like a (very serious) choose-your-own-adventure book.

We are still in the first half of the year and I have a lot of reading ahead of me in 2025, but I know for sure that this book is one that will stay with me for a really long time and will be a book I revisit in the future. I am also pretty confident in saying that this book will end up being on my top 10 favorites list at the end of the year. I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to read it and I really, sincerely, highly recommend reading it.