How to Be Both has two interconnected stories: one about a teenage girl called George whose mother has just died, and the other about an Italian renaissance artist, Francesco del Cossa. Depending on which copy you pick up, you will either be presented with George's story first or with Francesco's. The two narratives twist around each other like complicated vines becoming a singular yarn where time dissolves, structure breaks down, mysteries deepens, fiction gets real?and all life?s givens get given a second chance.