Isobel (“Izzie”) Todd Character Analysis in Life After Life

Hugh’s younger sister and Ursula’s aunt. Izzie, in contrast to Sylvie, breaks the mold of a traditional wife and mother. She has an affair with a married man at sixteen years old, becoming pregnant. In most of the timelines, the child is given to a German family and never heard from again; in one of the last timelines, Hugh and Sylvie adopt the child (named Roland) and raise him until he drowns at four years old. Izzie’s house often becomes a place of refuge for Ursula when she doesn’t feel comfortable going to Sylvie. Ursula goes to her when she discovers she is pregnant, and Izzie takes her to get an abortion. Ursula hides away at her apartment when she runs away from an abusive husband, Derek Oliphant. Izzie always appears to have good intentions, even if she is not always the most helpful.

Isobel (“Izzie”) Todd Character Timeline in Life After Life

The timeline below shows where the character Isobel (“Izzie”) Todd appears in Life After Life. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Life, Reincarnation, and Alternate Possibilities Theme Icon

...other maid, Alice, is visiting her mother, Sylvie’s husband Hugh is chasing down his sister Izzie in Paris, and Sylvie does not want to wake their cook, Mrs. Glover, whom she... (full context)

Gender Roles and Expectations Theme Icon

...telegram into the nursery when Sylvie is feeding Ursula a few months later, announcing that Izzie has had her baby. Hugh laments that if the man hadn’t been married, he could... (full context)

Izzie had already been noticeably pregnant when Hugh tracked her down in Paris a few months... (full context)

...Pamela tells Sylvie that she misses Hugh. Christmas had come and gone without him, though Izzie had visited and announced that she had joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment. Then, at New... (full context)

...are toasting the peace—though none of them are in a particularly jubilant mood. Hugh and Izzie are still at the Front, and Sylvie won’t believe that Hugh is safe until he... (full context)

Thirteen-year-old Ursula has lunch with Izzie and catches her up on her life. Ursula tells her that she is no longer... (full context)

When Izzie had told Hugh and Sylvie of her new job, Sylvie had called her a fool... (full context)

The novel briefly returns to when Ursula is thirteen: at the restaurant, Izzie pays for lunch and takes Ursula on a tour of London in her new car,... (full context)

Ursula is thirteen again: in London, Izzie and Ursula arrive in Izzie’s apartment, where everything is new and shiny. Izzie puts on... (full context)

...London. Ursula does not mention, however, that she had witnessed a peculiar scene (unseen by Izzie) while she was there). She had seen Sylvie arm in arm with an elegantly dressed... (full context)

The novel flashes forward again. Izzie’s next column explains the freedom that a single woman could obtain from a car—particularly that... (full context)

Izzie arrives and brings gifts for Ursula. Ursula hasn’t really seen Izzie since she spent a... (full context)

Izzie has one final gift, but for Teddy: a book called The Adventures of Augustus, by... (full context)

...to the house and finds Teddy, gloomy because the boys lost his ball. He opens Izzie’s book and scowls. Ursula picks up a glass of rum that Izzie had been drinking,... (full context)

...no money—a mistake, she realizes—but she knows where she is inevitably going. Ursula arrives at Izzie’s apartment and explains her condition, sobbing. (full context)

Izzie phones Hugh, explaining that Ursula had shown up at her door and would be staying... (full context)

Izzie takes Ursula to a large house in Belgravia, dropping her off and promising that she... (full context)

...Hugh appears, smiling at her and saying he will get her to a hospital (though Izzie protests that she’ll be prosecuted, to which Hugh says that he hopes that she is... (full context)

...allowance. Before, if she was really in need of extra money she could always ask Izzie or Hugh, but Derek would be mortified if she did this while they were married... (full context)

Ursula arrives at Izzie’s apartment. Izzie is horrified to see Ursula’s beaten face and invites her in. Izzie’s dentist... (full context)

...that she’d gone away for the summer, but Teddy is able to find her at Izzie’s. His presence cheers Ursula up immediately. He asks what happened to her face, and then... (full context)

...shoulder, still tremendously tired, until the doorbell rings. She answers it, presuming that it is Izzie—but it is Derek. She is so shocked she can’t speak. He twists her arm back... (full context)

Izzie arrives, commenting on how grown up Ursula looks now that she’s sixteen. Izzie reveals that... (full context)

...unable to understand anything had put a Ma Rainey record on the gramophone—a gift from Izzie, who had left her house in Holland Park and had decamped to California with her... (full context)

At dinner, Izzie asks Ursula if she’s met any nice men. Maurice makes fun of Ursula saying she’s... (full context)

...there at the table. Teddy supports her, saying she does all right on her own. Izzie defends her as well, saying that Ursula is only thirty—Izzie married at forty. (full context)

Izzie quotes, “Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.” Sylvie... (full context)

Sylvie and Izzie spend the rest of the dinner irritated with each other, while Ursula and Jimmy pointedly... (full context)

...but Teddy had shown up at the last minute. He and Nancy hold each other. Izzie had also arrived from California just a few days before Hugh’s death, not wanting to... (full context)

Izzie is the one who found Hugh, who had died of a heart attack while sitting... (full context)

Later, Ursula is collecting eggs from the henhouse when Izzie interrupts her, confessing rather abruptly that she had had a baby when she was sixteen;... (full context)

...dog walking behind them, but instead of walking to Ursula’s apartment, she walks Fred to Izzie’s apartment (Izzie has gone to Cornwall). Fred kisses her and wraps his arm around her;... (full context)

...Ursula to find out if there’s even a chance Teddy could still be alive, so Izzie and Ursula seek out the pilot who saw Teddy’s plane go down, Roy Holt. Roy... (full context)

...back to Fox Corner just before the snow closed the roads. He had literally dragged Izzie back to England from France, where she had spent a week with her lover. (full context)

On the boat ride back, their fellow guests assumed Hugh and Izzie were married. He had sent a telegram to his mother, Adelaide, informing her of Izzie’s... (full context)

Sylvie wonders what to do with Izzie and her child; Hugh insists that they should keep the baby and say the child... (full context)

At the funeral, everyone seems to want to try to claim Roland. Sylvie and Izzie both call him “my boy,” and Hugh is also greatly affected by his loss. Adelaide,... (full context)

In October on a break from university, Ursula stays with Izzie for a few days. She and Izzie are having tea in South Kensington when Ursula... (full context)