A feel-good, entertaining blend of humor, philosophy, and romance, with a time-slip twist.
A time-traveling man tries to get back to the future and his beloved wife in this novel.
Time is a bit elastic for Danny Maytree, 75, an actor-turned-novelist living in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. As he tells Samantha, his wife of 38 years, “once in a while my mind and the conventional notion of time drift a little out of synch.” It’s 2021, and Danny’s current work in progress concerns an actor who returns to the past to reverse bad career decisions. After several strange, perhaps mescaline-induced experiences (including a conversation with his mysterious rescue mutt, Tali), Danny finds himself young again, in Beverly Hills in 1974. Life imitates art as Danny tries to get his bearings; he writes a screenplay based on his novel while also making career decisions informed by a lifetime of learning. But success is not his chief motivation. Stuck in the past, he hasn’t met Sam yet and is bereft without her. He believes that somehow getting his movie produced will restore him to his wife and his life. Through the course of his time-travel journey, several odd personal encounters and many mystical revelations open Danny’s eyes about the past, forgiveness, and grace. Lenz, whose memoir North of Hollywood (2012) recounted his life as an actor, grounds his novel in showbiz practicalities, such as getting funding. Cinema’s alteration of reality through techniques like montages and jump-cuts makes an effective metaphor for Danny’s experience, and clever, snappy dialogue beefs up the more abstruse mystical elements. Intriguing complications include the question “Have you ever considered the possibility that you sort of cling to Sam? Isn’t that a no-no in your spiritual view of the world?” A life-affirming ending wraps everything up.
A feel-good, entertaining blend of humor, philosophy, and romance, with a time-slip twist. (Time-travel novel, 16+)Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9848442-6-5
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
An engaging story framed by a brooding meditation on time and meaning.
In this new novel by Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive, 2016), a man of extraordinarily long life deals with a painfully ordinary question: what is it we live for?
Tom Hazard, though he has gone by many names, has an unusual condition that makes him age exceptionally slowly—he's more than 400 years old in 2017 but looks a mere 40-something. Tragic events taught him early that his seeming agelessness is a lightning rod for witch hunters and the dangerously suspicious in all eras. For protection, he belongs to the Albatross Society, a secret organization led by Hendrich, an ancient, charismatic man who's highly protective of his members and aggressive about locating and admitting other “albas” into the group. After assisting Hendrich in one such quest, Tom starts a new life in London; he's haunted by memories of his previous life there in the early 1600s, when he had to leave his wife and young child to ensure their safety. He's losing hope that Hendrich will help him find his daughter, who he's learned shares his condition. He muddles through his days until he meets a French teacher who claims she recognizes his face. Unraveling that mystery will lead Tom to re-examine his deeply etched pessimism. Meanwhile, readers are treated to memories of his past, including encounters with Shakespeare, Capt. Cook, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Tom sometimes wallows overmuch about the changelessness of the human condition, and one might be forgiven for wondering why so much time has not done more to heal his oldest wounds. But Haig skillfully enlivens Tom’s history with spare, well-chosen detail, making much of the book transporting.
An engaging story framed by a brooding meditation on time and meaning.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-52287-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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