The Memory Tree

The desire to revisit one's past and tweak a relationship or erase a bad decision has inspired an entire subcategory of time-travel fiction. In Little's first novel, the power of temporal revision arrives not by choice but by sheer happenstance when middle-aged stockbroker Sam Ellis finds himself intermittently dissolving out of the present and into the summer of his thirteenth year. Unaccountably stranded back in his hometown of Nelson, Montana, for days at a time, Sam has little choice but to pass for a wayward businessman, rent out a room, and eventually confront his own emotionally disturbed parents. Yet the familial encounters not only unearth more than a few long-buried memories, including disturbing episodes of sexual abuse, but yield an opportunity to right a wrong that has scarred Sam's marriage and resulted in the death of a childhood friend. Little's elegantly crafted, stripped-down prose sustains a quietly powerful meditation on the ghosts of memory and will appeal to anyone harboring a secret yen to exorcise childhood demons.