Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray

The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray

The Lost Time Accidents

by John Wray

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Feb 2016, 512 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

John Wray Author Biography

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.

Author Interview

Other books by John Wray at BookBrowse
  • Lowboy jacket

5 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more fantasy, sci-fi, speculative, alt. history...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.