A Shortcut in Time

by Charles Dickinson

Book Overview

Charles Dickinson's novels and short stories have won widespread acclaim for their deft characterization, humanity, and humor. Newsday described him as "a writer thoroughly in command of his art," while the Chicago Tribune wrote "he can surprise us at almost every turn."

Now Dickinson slips beyond the bounds of mundane realism to create a poignant fantasy that bears comparison to the work of Jack Finney and Jonathan Carroll.

Euclid,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765306395
• ISBN13: 9780765306395
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Must Read for Time Travel fans

It took me three months to read Time and Again by Jack Finney, which I liked but it was a long haul. A Shortcut in Time cranked at record speed. I read it in two days - could not put it down! I'm a huge fan of time travel books with The Mirror and The Time Traveler's Wife as two of my favorites. A Shortcut in Time has quickly been added to my favorites list. What a great find. What a great read. Extremely well written. I loved this book!

Be careful where you run in the rain . . .

There are basically two kinds of time travel stories. There's the Sprague DeCamp/Robert Silverberg kind of story, full of large, historymaking events, and the Time Patrol to protect the continuum, and knowledgeable time travelers making things happen. And there's the Jack Finney kind of story, about ordinary people dealing with small-scale events in out-of-the-way towns and trying hard simply to cope with things that happen to them willy-nilly. Dickinson has written a warm, funny, affecting example of the second kind of story. Josh Winkler is a somewhat feckless artist living in Euclid Heights, Illinois, where crosswise shortcut paths known as "perp walks" disturb the town's gridded layout. He's married to a doctor, the sister of his brother Kurt's best friend when they were kids, before her brother drowned in the town pool and Kurt suffered permanent brain damage. Their fifteen-year-old daughter, Penny -- the best-drawn character in the book, I think -- is about all that's still keeping them together. Then Josh gets caught riding his bike in a storm on one of the perp walks and is tossed fifteen minutes into the past. But young Constance, who appears soon after, has a worse time of it, dragged into our own era from 1908. Can she get back? Can she adapt to our world? And what happens if someone else becomes an unintentional time traveler? Dickinson's style is quiet and thoughtful; he almost lets the story tell itself. An excellent piece of work.

Time travel for non-sci-fi fans

Though the premise - time travel - is a sci-fi staple, Dickinson's latest ("Rumor Has It," "The Widows' Adventures") is more psychological than speculative. What speculation there is revolves around the role of fate in our lives and how small actions can have unforeseen consequences. But mostly this is the story of a man's mid-life self-assessment, the role grief and guilt have played in his life, and the man he might have been.Shakily married to Flo, his childhood sweetheart and now a hard-working pediatrician, Josh Winkler is an unsuccessful artist beginning to face up to his mediocrity - by avoiding work as much as possible. It's a summer of storms in Euclid, Illinois, the only place either has ever lived, and their teenage daughter is making her first real break for independence. The marital tension, fueled by Josh's growing unreliability, goes back to the roots of their relationship - an "accident" that left Flo's brother dead and Josh's permanently brain damaged.Then one day, running the path behind his house in a storm, Josh slips 15 minutes into the past. Which prepares him to believe and help the desperate young girl who claims to be from 1908 and whose plight becomes more desperate with every moment she's gone. As the town - and Josh's marriage - roils with believers and non-believers, Dickinson explores how a jolt out of the accustomed tracks of life can change a person in unanticipated ways. Dickinson's complex characters reveal themselves in sometimes surprising, but reasonable ways. Examining the paradoxes of time travel and the inevitable consequent ripples, Dickinson also speculates on how circumstances may be shaped by chance, but the essential tenor of a life depends more on the nature of the person. A well-written, thoughtful, understated novel which should add to Dickinson's readership.

I Lost Myself In This Book

I loved the Widows' Adventure, and was excited to see the author had a new book out. A Shortcut in Time explores entirely new ideas, and is a fascinating read. The last half of the book occupied my thoughts when I was away from it and enthralled me when I was reading it. I found myself trying to work out the potential twists and turns - but the author came up with ideas that surprised me yet made perfect sense. A true delight.

A Timely Triumph

"A Shortcut In Time" marks the triumphant return of Charles Dickinson to the world of American fiction, after ten years away from publishing. It stands to reason that a certified genius author like Dickinson has not been sitting idle for the last ten years. If you are among the literary business world who has not seen fit to publish any of his works, you might want to reconsider before "Shortcut" is optioned by some large house for a movie, and all his writings become hot properties. This book would scarcely need to be rewritten for the screen. Without giving too much of the plot and story line away, suffice to say that Dickinson succeeds in making captivating subjects out of his normal "everyman" characters. The reader can profoundly identify with the trials and tribulations of the richly drawn characters as they wrestle with the life-altering impacts of time travel. Dickinson will elicit knowing thoughts of recognition from the reader, while generously sprinkling in his trademark droll humor when observing the human condition in his story-telling. This is a must read for all fans of good fiction writing, as are all Dickinson's previous works including "Crows", "Waltz In Marathon", and "The Widows' Adventure". Happy travels.