In that year of 1970—now itself so far away—Simon Morley is a frustrated artist working in a New York City ad agency. He has a best girlfriend, Kate, whom he imagines he might one day get serious about. He enjoys the bustling modern city in a desultory way, but feels a kind of recurrent ennui or dissatisfaction with his life. Then he's approached by a man named Ruben Prien. Prien, who seems to work for the government, knows all about Si's past and some peculiar capabilities Si possesses, and he bears a strange offer. Si must sign up on faith for an unknown project dubbed the most exciting adventure in mankind's history.

When Si takes the plunge he discovers that the armed forces have set up a secret black-budget warehouse installation in the midst of New York to train time travelers. But their method of breaching the barriers to the past is unique. Through hypnosis and psychic conditioning and simulations, each individual time traveler will be acclimated to one particular era and suddenly make the quantum leap when his or her mind is ready. Thus, Si is to be groomed to reach 1882 New York.

After arduous rituals, he makes his first brief transition, for a short nighttime stroll in Victorian-era Central Park. His second trip finds him illicitly accompanied by Kate. For Kate has an old family mystery she wishes to clear up, involving an ancestor named Andrew Carmody. The two spend a few hours in the past and make a tentative beginning at unraveling the mystery. Then they return to 1970.

All this time, the experts who run the program—Dr. Danziger and others—have been alert for any changes in the timestream due to past interference by Si. But all seems safe. The authorities therefore permit Si to return to the past and focus on Kate's relatives (although Kate is forbidden from accompanying him again), since it fits in with their general scheme of historical research.

But what Si doesn't realize is that in this all-too-tangible past he's going to fall in love with a woman named Julia and jeopardize both their lives with his snooping.

Nostalgia takes on the tide of progress

Jack Finney had written about nostalgic time travel before this book. But his accomplishment here surpasses all his other forays into this theme. He welded together his talent at mainstream verisimilitude and portrayal of the zeitgeist (try to remember what 1970 was like, an era of despairing, hopeful, schizophrenic millennialism) with the talents of a grade-A historical novelist and the speculative cast of mind of a true SF writer. The three-in-one combo almost guaranteed a hit book. Add in real, unfeigned passion about his topic, along with the novelty aspect of the illustrations, and it's no wonder that, as my 1971 paperback copy boasts, there were "over 2,500,000 hardcover copies in print."

Although the parts set in 1970 are the briefest, Finney nails the era. It's a necessary foundation for what's to come. Simon Morley's spiritual malaise echoes, I'm sure, Finney's own experiences working for ad agencies, and it rings very true. And the broader cultural dissatisfactions and disturbing fallout of "progress" are hammered home both broadly and subtly.

The bulk of the book follows Si on his expedition to the past. Here Finney really shines. The breadth and depth of his research are felt on every page, without burdening the reader. Finney's sensory-rich prose and minute particularity and sensitive characterizations of the Victorian players have the same effect as Si's psychic training: they immerse the reader in a tangible past. And the mystery involving Andrew Carmody serves—along with the love affair between Si and Julia—as a winning plot armature.

Finally come the speculative elements. Because the book is told in the first person, we experience the cognitive dissonance any actual time traveler would feel in vivid fashion. (Nor are the paradoxes so central to time-travel stories neglected.) Si's actions in the past are unusually passive when compared to those of other genre figures. There's no yanking the levers of history—except at the very end. This receptivity to the integrity and values of 1882—the past has much to teach us high-and-mighty 1970 dwellers—further valorizes the Victorian milieu. (Although Finney is careful to point out that era's flaws—and 1970's virtues—as well.)

This book questions the very notion of progress that underlies the program of science fiction—but it affirms a quest for the betterment of mankind as old as Utopia.