Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2016
512 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
John Wray takes us from turn-of-the-century Viennese salons buzzing with rumors about Einstein's radical new theory to the death camps of World War Two, from the golden age of postwar pulp science fiction to a startling discovery in a Manhattan apartment packed to the ceiling with artifacts of modern life.
Haunted by a failed love affair and the darkest of family secrets, Waldemar 'Waldy' Tolliver wakes one morning to discover that he has been exiled from the flow of time. The world continues to turn, and Waldy is desperate to find his way back-a journey that forces him to reckon not only with the betrayal at the heart of his doomed romance but also the legacy of his great-grandfather's fatal pursuit of the hidden nature of time itself.
Part madcap adventure, part harrowing family drama, part scientific mystery - and never less than wildly entertaining - The Lost Time Accidents is a bold and epic saga set against the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.
"Starred Review. [A]n arresting mosaic of science fiction, history, and philosophy which proves Wray's (Lowboy, 2010) remarkable malleability and talent." - Booklist
"Wray's ambition and attention to plotting is praiseworthy, but the structure can be exhausting, and there are instances of quirk standing in for characterization. Nevertheless, readers looking for a fully realized blend of science and history will find a deep world to dive into." - Publishers Weekly
"Wray handles [The Lost Time Accidents] masterfully, blending sf, quantum physics, traditional realism, magic realism, and even a love story skillfully and poignantly...Enthusiastically recommended for fans of bold and inventive literary fiction." - Library Journal
"An omnium-gatherum of 20th-century physics and spirituality that ultimately gathers too much." - Kirkus
"With this darkly playful chronicle of three generations of crackpots and criminals, losers and visionaries, John Wray has written a book of eerie magic: Waldy Tolliver's love letter to the mysterious Mrs. Haven is a secret love letter to fiction itself. A mischievous epic, luminous and strange." - Kiran Desai
"Only he would find the crazy quilt universe of sci-fi, war, mystery, doomed love and eerie foresight that was always lurking deep in the grand old novel in letters. This is literature as high wire act without the net; epic in scale, even bigger in heart." - Marlon James
"John Wray gets his Calvino on, his Mitchell on, his Murakami on, and even his Joyce on in this spectacular rattlebag of a novel. The Lost Time Accidents circulates through time and geography - from New York to outer space to Central Europe - and eventually ebbs eloquently back to the essential questions of who we are and why we're here." - Colum McCann
"John Wray is the next wave of American fiction." - Jonathan Lethem
This information about The Lost Time Accidents was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Wray is the author of Godsend, The Lost Time Accidents, Lowboy, Canaan's Tongue, and The Right Hand of Sleep. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library, and a Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. A citizen of the United States and Austria, he lives in New York City.
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