Time and Again (1970) - Jack Finney

 It’s strange to me how some books can stick in your mind so firmly that even after more than fifty years you still remember the very first time you became aware of their existence. Time and Again is one of those books for me. 

My wife and I were living in Houston in mid-1972 and had driven about 110 miles back to the two little towns we had been raised in so that we could visit our folks for the first time in several months. Port Arthur had recently opened up a new library near my in-laws that caught my eye, and I decided to drop by for a quick look. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to borrow any of the books, but still couldn’t resist browsing the shelves for a few minutes anyway. But I never even made it to the shelves that day because a brand new copy of Time and Again was sitting on top of a little display between the front door and the shelves I was headed toward. The book looked interesting so I settled into a nearby chair with it for a closer look, and would hardly move again for the next two hours before reluctantly putting the book back where I found it and leaving the library to pack for home. And I was so curious about how Finney’s story would end that I bought my own copy as soon as I could make it to a Houston bookstore the following week. 

That’s the exact copy of the book I just re-read for the first time since 1972.

Finney’s story is not one involving time machines, wormholes, or parallel universes, and in a way, that makes it all the more believable. His time-travelers are specially recruited men and women who can immerse themselves into period-correct settings until they are able to use self-hypnosis to travel back in time. Si Morley is one of the few recruits actually able to pull off the stunt, and after a brief foray to 1882 New York City, during which his visit  does not impact the present, he is allowed to return to January 1882 with strict instructions that his is to be only an observer, that he is not to interact with anyone he meets. Well, that’s easier said than done.

Si takes a room in a boardinghouse where he is smitten by Julia, niece of the woman who owns the home. He knows that nothing can come of his feelings for Julia, but when he learns that she is engaged to a man Si knows will destroy her life, he does his best to make sure that their marriage will never happen. 

“Observe, don’t interfere: It was a rule easy to formulate and of obvious necessity at the project…where the people of this time were only ghosts long vanished from reality nothing remaining of them but odd-looking sepia photographs lying in old albums or in nameless heaps shoved under antique-store counters in cardboard boxes. But where I was now, they were alive. Where I was now, Julia’s life wasn’t long since over and forgotten; it still lay ahead. And was as valuable as any other. That was the key: If in my own time I couldn’t stand by and allow the life of a girl I knew and liked to be destroyed if I could prevent it, I finally knew that I couldn’t do it here either."

Could Si, by dooming their potential children never to be born, be negatively impacting the future? It’s a chance he’s willing to take, but when the project bosses do a complete one-eighty and task him with doing something in the past that will have historical significance in the present, he begins to doubt himself. Now what does he do?

Time and Again would be great fun even if this were all there was to it, but there’s more. What makes the book so special, in my estimation, are all the sketches and historical photos used to illustrate the 1882 world that Si is traveling back to. (My particular favorite is a photo of the raised arm of the Statue of Liberty sitting on the grounds of Madison Square before the statue was fully assembled where it stands today.) The attention to detail makes it easy to imagine the very different New York City that Si is trying to figure out, and survive, all by himself. 

This was a successful re-read. I come away from it with a deeper appreciation for what Finney accomplished with Time and Again, if maybe a little less excitement than then I felt the first time around. And that’s on me. After all, I was in my twenties the first time I read the book, and I’m in my seventies now. A lot has changed, not me the least.