“Time after Time” by Lisa Grunwald
Synopsis: On a clear December morning in 1937, at the famous gold clock in Grand Central Terminal, Joe Reynolds, a hardworking railroad man from Queens, meets a vibrant young woman who seems mysteriously out of place. Nora Lansing is a Manhattan socialite whose flapper clothing, pearl earrings, and talk of the Roaring Twenties don’t seem to match the bleak mood of Depression-era New York. Captivated by Nora from her first electric touch, Joe despairs when he tries to walk her home and she disappears. Finding her again—and again—will become the focus of his love and his life.
Nora, a fiercely independent aspiring artist, is shocked to find she’s somehow been trapped, her presence in the terminal governed by rules she cannot fathom. It isn’t until she meets Joe that she begins to understand the effect that time is having on her, and the possible connections to the workings of Grand Central and the solar phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge, when the sun rises or sets between the city’s skyscrapers, aligned perfectly with the streets below.
As thousands of visitors pass under the famous celestial blue ceiling each day, Joe and Nora create a life unlike any they could have imagined. With infinite love in a finite space, they take full advantage of the “Terminal City” within a city, dining at the Oyster Bar, visiting the Whispering Gallery, and making a home at the Biltmore Hotel. But when the construction of another landmark threatens their future, Nora and Joe are forced to test the limits of freedom and love.
Delving into Grand Central Terminal’s rich past, Lisa Grunwald crafts a masterful historical novel about a love affair that defies age, class, place, and even time. - Penguin Random House
Rating (out of 5): 4.25
Review: As I write this review, I’m on a train home from a weekend in Connecticut — it was a great few days filled with sunshine, spiked seltzer, and making a dent in my long summer reading list. I read 7 books over three days (I know, I can be a bit ridiculous at times), but it only felt right to review this one first because of my chosen method of travel home. Not only that, this book was utterly charming and it combined many of my favorite things: an implausible love story, a little bit of magic, a nerdy look behind-the-scenes of a cultural landmark, and memorable characters.
Joe and Nora have a pretty great “meet-cute” — they run into each other in Grand Central, have an amazing day together, and she vanishes. Joe, falling in love at first sight, tries to figure out who Nora is and where she went, going down a supernatural rabbit hole that takes over his life for quite a few years. I don’t think that I’m giving away anything that you wouldn’t get from a read of the first ten pages of the book, but while Nora is full of spirit, she is also…a spirit.
The synopsis above highlights the best part of this book: “an infinite love in a finite space.” Joe and Nora’s love story is epic, expansive, and at the same time, stuck with an expiration date. Nora doesn’t age, doesn’t leave, doesn’t get to live the life she had always dreamed of — but Joe, solid Joe who loves his family and Queens and work, is changing every day that he’s with Nora. I felt so bad for both of these characters, and there were literal heart-wrenching moments.
Lisa Grunwald managed to create some amazing characters, who felt totally human — Joe and Nora and all those in their lives were a little bit selfish, a little bit flawed. I love that; in so many books, and in romances in particular, the characters seem too good to be true. Here, Joe and Nora felt like people you encounter in your day-to-day existence, which was totally refreshing.
Oh, and the ending! At about 75 pages out, I started getting worried how this book would be wrapped up in a way that felt satisfying and true to the story. Looking back, I’m not sure why I was skeptical; “Time after Time” was meticulously researched and incredibly well-crafted. This is a #spoilerfreezone here, so all I will say is that Lisa Grunwald ended this work in a way that felt honest, and she did so with aplomb.
Finally, I think y’all may have realized that I’m a pretty big history nerd, and I absolutely love weird trivia. One of the unexpected highlights of this book for me was the glimpse at the inner workings of Grand Central Terminal at the heyday of train travel. When I come to New York, I arrive at Penn Station, and I had forgotten about the grandeur of Grand Central. I also didn’t consider how much of a city within a city the station was (and is now, to a much lesser extent). Hearing about those details, peppered in to an already engrossing read, was icing on the cake for me.
Trigger warnings: Death and emotional destruction; war; yearning for the golden age of train travel
TL;DR: I picked this one up for the interesting premise, but I enjoyed it for so much more than that — a look at a storied era in American history, a touch of the supernatural, a heart wrenching glance into a love story that was both timeless and time bound.
If you liked this, try these:
Anything by Beatriz Williams, but my favorite is “The Summer Wives” (I have “Golden Hour” at home thanks to the Book of the Month club, so that’s back at the top of my TBR)
“The Glass Ocean” by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White
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