John D. Husband

In 1926, when Maggie was 16, she moved with her family from rural Cobbler's Eddy, Indiana, to New York, so her father could work on Wall Street. There she ended up living a largely unfulfilling and often tragic life, until one day a miracle happened. The three friends who'd disappeared after hopping a train to find her in the 20s appeared in New York in 1984---not having aged a day. She takes them in, helping them adjust to modern life, and then arranges for them all to return to their old hometown. But the weird and wild ride has only just begun...

Maggie is an incredible individual---a spunky kid in the 20s, and a tough old broad in the 80s. Life in the various eras and locales is bright and true, riveting. The tiniest details of life take on all the importance to the reader that they have to those who are right there, living them. Watching the characters go through culture shock as they travel through time is entrancing and all too real. This is a book that makes time travel feel entirely solid and real, but almost as an afterthought, because the fact of its happening isn't nearly as important its effects on people and life. And in the process, the concepts of age and experience are explored in some fascinating ways.

I feel as though there's so much more I want to say, but it's one of those books that defies description. It isn't an action-packed thrill-ride. It's about people, not events. It's an incredibly beautiful tale that makes you feel as though you've traveled through time yourself.

For a longer version of this review, visit Errant Dreams.… (mehr)

Imagine being 16 years old again. Imagine having the ability to be young again while retaining the wisdom and knowledge of your years. Imagine, if you will, the ability to change the future and live your life differently the second time around.
These ideas form the premise of John D. Husband's first novel, Maggie Again. The year is 1926, and Maggie and her three best friends, Tom, Alfie and Gordie, are teenagers enjoying farm life near the tiny village of Cobblers Eddy, Indiana. When Maggie's family suddenly moves to New York City, the boys decide to follow her. They hop in a boxcar on a train bound for New York. When the boys arrive, though, the year is 1984 and Maggie is now Margaret Stone, a 74 year old retiree. Maggie and the boys return to the Cobblers Eddy of 1926 determined to change their fate.
Maggie Again is not just a time travel novel but a story of friendship and love and how those feelings do not diminish over time. Husband's writing is unaffected and folksy, and he presents a somewhat innocuous view of the world. I found it to be a pleasant, easy read.… (mehr)

Time-travel novels tend to come in two basic types: those in which the time-travelers have to fight for their survival and those in which they find romance in the past and are tempted to stay there. Of course, even those time-travelers forced to fight for their lives often manage to find romance along the way but they seldom want to stay in the violent era in which they find themselves.

With Maggie Again, John Husband offers up the gentlest of the second type, a novel in which not one real villain appears even for a moment, a novel in which even New York City policemen and mental institution employees fall in love with the three young men who arrived there in 1984 believing that it was still 1926.

Life in rural Cobblers Eddy, Indiana, was a good in 1926. Teenagers of the time went to school and worked hard to support the farming efforts of their parents but they had plenty of time to be kids. And, although these were more innocent times, they fell in love and looked forward to raising families of their own right there in Cobblers Eddy. Just when Tom and Maggie seemed to be heading that way, Maggie’s father accepted a Wall Street position and she found herself beginning a whole new life without Tom.

Things took a strange turn when Maggie’s three best friends, Tom, Alphie and Gordy, hopped into an empty boxcar that they hoped would take them to New York City at her invitation. They never showed up and no trace of them was ever found. Maggie, grief stricken though she remained for her entire life, eventually married and had a son whom she name Tom in memory of her first love. But in 1984, widowed and having lost her son, and preparing to retire from a lifetime of work, Maggie got the surprise of her life. Tom, Alphie and Gordy were in the city looking for her and they have not aged a day since she had last seen them fifty-eight years earlier in Cobblers Eddy.

And the best is yet to come, as Maggie and the boys find when she decides to help acclimate them to their new world by taking them back to Cobblers Eddy to see if anyone they remember still lives there. Maggie Again is more than a nostalgic look at simpler times. It is a book about second chances and being wise enough to take advantage of those chances when they fall from the sky. This one will be published in January 2008 and will make a nice start to the reading year for those who spot it.

Rated at: 3.5… (mehr)