Time and Again

originally published on March 23, 2021

My favorite novel of all time is Time and Again by Jack Finney. The novel is a science fiction mystery adventure romance time travel story published in 1970. The book is extremely readable and exciting and full of an abundance of details that make the story come alive, many of which are historical facts. It is told in the first person with the hero of the story, Simon Morley, narrating. As the story progresses, you get inside Si’s head and really feel you know him as a friend.

This post is not a full book review, but I’ll mention a few interesting points about it.

The basic plot is that Si, a commercial artist, agrees to participate in a secret U.S. government project to travel back into time using self-hypnosis (no gadgetry is involved) through an elaborately conceived project headed by a retired history professor. He is successful and is able to travel back to the New York City of 1882 where he learns about the New York of that time, solves an old family mystery, uncovers a blackmail plot, nearly dies in a massive building fire, falls in love, and narrowly escapes from the police in a setup.

The novel builds in excitement and suspense and ultimately concludes with a satisfying climax (I’ll leave that for you to enjoy) of the main plot and the resolution of all secondary plots. But there is an even more interesting point brought out at the very end. Apparently, this book is not really a novel, not a work of fiction! We learn that this book’s manuscript was written down by one Si Morley around 1882 and purposely left in the New York Public Library in such a remote and rarely used area under so many other piles of old papers and magazines that it could only be found by a certain tenacious, modern-day writer named Jack Finney, who was known to spend a great deal of time there.

So, I guess Si Morley was a real person who wrote down what happened to him, and he also happened to know Jack Finney! Apparently also: Time travel is possible!

Hmmm ….