The Book of Two Ways – Jodi Picoult (2020)

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult, published in 2020, is a richly layered novel that explores identity, choices, and the profound mystery of what might have been. Weaving together threads of ancient Egyptian mythology, modern death doula work, and the physics of the multiverse, the book tells the story of Dawn Edelstein, a woman who survives a plane crash and finds herself questioning every decision she’s made since she last walked away from an archaeological dig – and from a man she once loved. It blends past and present, love and legacy, life and death, drawing inspiration from the titular Egyptian funerary text that charts two potential paths through the afterlife.

Plot Summary

A woman wakes on a plane, her mind fogged with sleep, her phone reminding her of the dead. As a death doula, Dawn Edelstein marks time with their names, each soul now a memory. But the routine ends abruptly when the voice of the crew announces a planned emergency. The aircraft will crash. In the chaos, as bodies tense and prayers fill the air, Dawn’s thoughts do not reach for her husband or daughter, but for a man in the Egyptian desert – a love left behind, a life unfinished.

The plane crash leaves her physically intact, one of the few survivors, but something in her has cracked open. Faced with the chance to fly anywhere, she does not choose Boston or her husband Brian. She chooses Cairo. And with that decision, the fault lines of her life begin to tremble.

Fifteen years ago, Dawn had stood on ancient ground as an Egyptologist, immersed in the mysteries of the Book of Two Ways – a funerary text mapping the soul’s journey through the afterlife. She had worked beside Wyatt Armstrong, an infuriatingly charming British academic whose brilliance and arrogance lit up every tomb wall they studied. Their passion, intellectual and physical, had burned hot beneath the desert sun until a phone call pulled Dawn back to the United States. Her mother was dying. She left everything – her research, her dissertation, Wyatt – and never returned.

Now, after the crash, Dawn steps into the same dust, boards the same train to Minya, and arrives at the Dig House in Deir el-Bersha. It is the start of a parallel life she once imagined but never lived. The house, familiar yet changed, holds the weight of memory. Wyatt is there, directing a dig with new students and newer technology, surrounded by the bones of a lost world. When he sees her again, the past curls into the present with the intensity of desert heat.

Their reunion is awkward, cautious, but beneath the surface lies the electric current of unresolved love. Wyatt has found what they once sought together – the tomb of Djehutynakht, an elusive nomarch whose burial had been lost for centuries. The discovery is thrilling, but the echo of Dawn’s absence lingers in Wyatt’s voice, in the silence between them. Their shared history is painted into every wall of the tombs, preserved like the hieroglyphs they once traced side by side.

Back in Boston, Dawn’s life waits with quiet certainty. Brian, a physicist, speaks in the language of quantum theory and the multiverse. He believes in infinite versions of the same moment, in the idea that all choices coexist. Their daughter Meret, sensitive and artistic, grounds Dawn with her presence, her questions, her gentle understanding. But home no longer feels whole. The plane crash split Dawn’s world along an invisible seam, and she is walking both lives – one where she is a mother and wife, and one where she is a seeker of ancient truths, and of Wyatt.

Memories weave through the present. Dawn recalls the day she met Wyatt in a bar, drenched from rain and burdened with textbooks. She remembers their first excavation, the slow-burning romance, the academic rivalry that only deepened their bond. They had fought, flirted, translated spells, and sketched tombs like they were drawing the map of their future. But time had swept it all away.

In Egypt again, she helps decipher a new version of the Book of Two Ways, etched into cedar and stone. The spells, once dusty lines in a manuscript, now feel like secrets meant only for her. The desert becomes a mirror, reflecting the choices she made and the ones still waiting. Wyatt tells her that her past research shaped his own. He quotes her, references her work, honors her impact – the dream she had feared lost is not just remembered, it lives.

But there is no clean road. Her life in Boston tugs at her like gravity. Brian suspects something has changed. Meret asks questions that slice through pretense. Dawn is not unkind, but she is uncertain. Each timeline calls to her – the one she lives, the one she left.

In parallel, the death doula in her continues to tend to those preparing to leave life. She listens, comforts, carries stories. One client teaches her that the unfinished matters more than the completed. Another reminds her that the living must choose their own truths. Through their final breaths, Dawn begins to understand that death is not always an end – sometimes, it is the echo of beginning.

She returns to Boston, her body still echoing with Egypt’s dust. Wyatt stays in her thoughts like a word she cannot unlearn. Brian, with his gentle logic and patient love, holds space for her uncertainty. And Meret, young but wise, remains her compass. She tries to re-enter her life, to walk the path she had chosen long ago. But the weight of choice presses harder now. Every hallway, every conversation, whispers a different possibility.

Eventually, the tension gives way. She must decide not just where to go, but who to be. The Book of Two Ways is clear – both paths lead to the same destination, but the journey defines the traveler. Some roads are straight. Others burn with fire.

At last, she stands in front of the tomb, her hand brushing stone, feeling the ink of ancient truths press into her skin. The soul, she has learned, travels two ways – water and land, heart and mind. She chooses. Not with certainty, but with clarity. She will follow the map, wherever it leads.

Main Characters

• Dawn Edelstein – A former Egyptologist turned death doula, Dawn is intelligent, compassionate, and deeply conflicted. Her career shift from academia to end-of-life care is rooted in a personal tragedy, yet her old passion resurfaces after a near-death experience. The story is driven by her internal struggle between loyalty to the life she built with her husband and daughter in Boston and the intellectual and emotional pull of her former life and love in Egypt.
• Wyatt Armstrong – A charismatic and brilliant British Egyptologist, Wyatt is Dawn’s former lover and academic collaborator. Their relationship, once deeply intimate and intellectually stimulating, was left unresolved. Wyatt’s presence in the narrative reignites unresolved feelings and challenges Dawn’s assumptions about her identity and desires.
• Brian Edelstein – Dawn’s husband, a theoretical physicist whose interest in the multiverse provides philosophical counterpoint to the book’s thematic explorations. Brian is steady and kind, a man devoted to his family, yet somewhat oblivious to Dawn’s growing restlessness and emotional distance.
• Meret Edelstein – Dawn and Brian’s teenage daughter, intelligent and sensitive, serves as a quiet symbol of the life Dawn has built. Meret’s presence raises the emotional stakes for Dawn’s choices and grounds the story in familial love and generational continuity.

Theme

• The Forking Paths of Life and Afterlife – At the heart of the novel is the theme of choice. Inspired by the ancient Egyptian “Book of Two Ways,” Dawn’s story becomes a meditation on the roads not taken – professionally, romantically, and spiritually. The book examines how alternate paths might unfold and what remains unchangeable despite divergent decisions.
• Death and Legacy – As a death doula, Dawn accompanies others through their final transitions. This work intimately acquaints her with mortality and the notion of unfinished business, prompting her to consider what constitutes a “good death” and a meaningful life. The narrative constantly juxtaposes the permanence of death with the impermanence of choices and time.
• The Multiverse and the Nature of Reality – Through Brian’s scientific lens, the novel explores the concept of the multiverse – the idea that infinite versions of ourselves exist in parallel timelines. This motif expands the emotional weight of Dawn’s dilemma and underlines the speculative possibility that no choice is ever truly final.
• Time, Memory, and Rebirth – Both Egyptian cosmology and Dawn’s personal journey emphasize cyclical time and the possibility of rebirth – whether spiritual, romantic, or intellectual. The story’s movement between timelines and locations mirrors the looping structure of Egyptian beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife.
• Knowledge and Power – Just as the Book of Two Ways required its reader to know specific spells to survive the afterlife’s trials, the novel highlights the power of knowledge in shaping one’s destiny. Dawn’s unfinished academic thesis becomes a symbol of potential and the role of wisdom in personal transformation.

Writing Style and Tone

Jodi Picoult’s prose in The Book of Two Ways is thoughtful, lyrical, and layered with introspection. She balances academic detail with emotional depth, allowing readers to immerse themselves in both the intellectual rigor of Egyptology and the quiet intimacies of human relationships. Her narrative voice is confident and richly descriptive, especially when depicting ancient rituals, desert landscapes, and domestic tensions. This precision helps ground complex philosophical and scientific ideas in the real-world dilemmas faced by her protagonist.

The tone of the novel is simultaneously contemplative and urgent. Picoult masterfully interlaces existential musings with the emotional immediacy of a woman facing life-altering choices. The shifts between Egypt and Boston, past and present, are fluid and resonant, echoing the novel’s central concern with alternative realities. There’s a deep empathy that underpins the narrative, whether it’s directed at the dying, the bereft, or those who find themselves at a crossroads. The use of dual timelines and layered symbolism imbues the book with a tone that is both mystical and grounded, speculative yet emotionally raw.