I used to wonder, if I could travel in time, where and when would I go and what would I change. The more time travel stories I read, however, the more I realized how dangerous it would be to muck around with the timeline—no matter how well-intentioned you are. What if there was someone worse than Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? What if a change meant that we never figured out a critical vaccine or cure? Playing with the timeline or the metaverse is to play god, and I realized that I really don’t want that kind of power weighing on my conscience. That said, I’m still going to dive into books like Hayley Gelfuso’s thoughtful and original novel, The Book of Lost Hours, every chance I get.
Lisavet Levy comes from a long line of clockmakers, but it isn’t until the Gestapo shows up at the door one night in 1938 that she realizes that her father holds the key to travel outside of time. Ezekiel planned to escape the Reich with his children until everything went pear-shaped. As a last resort, Ezekiel opens a hole in time and shoves Lisavet through. Years later, a young American girl, Amelia, is approached by a strange woman calling herself Moira. Moira winds a watch, opens a hole in time, and shoves Amelia through. (There is a lot of shoving in this novel.)
Gelfuso tracks back and forth in time to tell the story of Lisavet, Amelia, and Moira and their long, strange journey through time. Unlike a lot of other time travel novels I’ve read, travelers can’t just pop in and out of history. They can, with effort, enter memories to see history unfold through the eyes of a dead person. And these travelers can only exit our timeline if they have a very special watch, like the ones made by Ezekiel Levy. The few of these watches that exist have been snatched up and closely guarded by the world’s intelligence services. Instead of changing history by altering events, these travelers can affect history by erasing memories.
There’s plenty of plot—and even a love story or two—in The Book of Lost Hours, but what really attracted me to the story are the questions it asks. Who gets to decide what to erase? What happens to history when people and their ideas are forgotten? Thinking this way can lead you down a tangled path of what if that, I would argue, ultimately ends up with an unparseable snarl of causes, effects, chaos, luck, serendipity, and appalling ethical dilemmas. We just can’t know how even the slightest change will affect the timeline. I wouldn’t dare try to make those kinds of decisions.
Readers who love to contemplate what could be or what might’ve been if the historical timeline had been pruned here and there will find a lot of food for thought in The Book of Lost Hours.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.