Into the Current

"I've torn though the caul of consciousness," says Daniel Solomon, narrator of this time-unhinged bildungsroman. Daniel is trapped in exceptional circumstances: the plane he was on has exploded, and Daniel is stuck in midair. "Time's Arrow lost momentum," he explains. "The expansion of the universe puttered to a stop." It's an audacious concept, and debut author Young admirably runs with it to great effect. Young gifts Daniel with the ability to relive his life in any order, recalling Billy Pilgrim of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Ensnared by eternity, Daniel becomes obsessed with charting the path that led to this time-frozen state; "It's so much easier to see all the connective threads and paths of causation when you reverse-engineer your life like this." Young is a gifted and subtle writer, and though his ultimate truth is hardly revelatory%E2%80%94"No other person will ever fully understand what it is to be you; they'll only ever know the abridged, desaturated, secondhand versions of our most important stories"%E2%80%94and Daniel's life is not that different from most, this novel is unquestionably a great deal of fun and a terrific read. Agent: Marilyn Biderman, Marilyn Biderman Literary. (Sept.)