This year's Big American Novel is a high-concept epic that races through one family's experience of the twentieth century, embracing philosophy, science, history and politics along the way.
The Lost Time Accidents is a bold and epic saga set against the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.
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. In his ambitious and fiercely inventive new novel, John Wray takes us from turn-of-the-century Viennese salons buzzing with rumours about Einstein's radical new theory to the death camps of the Second World War, from the golden age of post-war pulp science fiction to a startling discovery in a modern-day Manhattan apartment packed to the ceiling with artefacts of contemporary life.
About the Author
John Wray is also the author of Lowboy, Canaan's Tongue, and The Right Hand of Sleep. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, 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 both the United States and Austria, he lives in New York City.
Industry Reviews
This is literature as high-wire act without the net; epic in scale, even bigger in heart -- Marlon James
A science fiction novel about time-travel, filled with unabashedly zany characters . . . a highly enjoyable book * * Sunday Times * *
Startlingly accomplished * * Daily Telegraph * *
John Wray gets his Calvino on, his Mitchell on, his Murakami on, and even his Joyce on in this spectacular rattlebag of a novel . . . Who says the novel is dead? Just smash the clocks and open this novel -- Colum McCann
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
A big, enveloping story that's also tenderly wrought, The Lost Time Accidents whips through Viennese pastry shops, cluttered libraries, and the chambers of its narrator's sentimental heart * * Huffington Post * *
[A] sweeping historical novel that's also a love story but is rooted in time-travel science fiction and takes on as its subject the meaning of time itself. This is no small endeavor. It's hard not to admire this book, the mass and richness of which is a testament to the meticulous, dedicated work of its talented author * * Los Angeles Times * *
[A]n arresting mosaic of science fiction, history, and philosophy which proves Wray's remarkable malleability and talent * * Booklist (starred review) * *
John Wray is the next wave of American fiction -- Jonathan Lethem
America's most original young writer -- Gary Shteyngart * * author of Absurdistan * *
John Wray is a daring young writer -- James Wood * * New Yorker * *
One of our most astonishing and relevant young writers * * Esquire * *
Perfect for fans of David Mitchell and Jonathan Lethem . . . John Wray exceeds even the highest expectations in this ebulliently written, deeply intelligent take on the Great American Novel * * NetGalley * *
