Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the first novel of Kate Atkinson. The book Behind the Scenes at the Museum covers the experiences of Ruby Lennox from a middle-class English family living in York.
By interspersing flashbacks with the narrative of Ruby's own life, the book Behind the Scenes at the Museum chronicles the lives of four generations of women from Ruby's great-grandmother Alice to Ruby's mother's failed dreams.
The story of Ruby's own life is told in thirteen chapters, all written in the first person, documenting key periods in Ruby's life from 1951 ("Conception" beginning with the words "I exist!") to 1992. In between each chapter are (non-consecutive) flashbacks that tell the story from the point of view of one of the other (mostly female) members of Ruby's family—including her great-grandmother Alice, her grandmother Nell and her mother Bunty. Common themes in the book include the untimely death of children, the effect of the two World Wars on the family, the ultimate fate of characters who "disappeared" from their families lives never to be heard of again, and how the women of the family feel compelled to enter into marriages in which they become unhappy.
The fate of Ruby's family is revealed gradually through the book. A number of revelations, such as the fact that Ruby's sister Gillian dies in a road accident aged 11, are revealed to the reader long before they actually happen. However, other revelations relating the fate of various characters are withheld and revealed gradually throughout the novel. (Summary by Wikipedia)