AS TIME GOES BY

In Adams’ novel, written as a memoir, his protagonist, referred to only as Old, reflects on his lifetime.

Adams, author of the Rairarubia Tales series and other works of YA and middle-grade literature, turns to adult fiction in this novel. Old reflects on his youth in the 1930s with a sense of his own limitations: “Not here a Sedaris, or Saunders, or Atwood, or Didion, or Eggers, or such. Just me, squinting into some memorable windows in my life before they all fog up.” Plagued by questions of narcissism, existentialism, and identity, Old is a contradictory narrator who both insists on his significance and denies it, offering up memories of his childhood, Navy service, love affairs, and professional life in unembellished prose. Awash in nostalgia, this book offers a misty-eyed look back at childhood from the vantage of old age. The story unfolds chronologically; each chapter stands alone, examining a particular moment in the narrator’s life, without connecting much with other chapters. Although bookended by Old’s probing list of self-directed questions (“What can my own stories tell me about me?” and “Did I ignore a role in life I should have lived? What would it have been?”), the book doesn’t answer them. Old, in the first and last chapters, relies heavily on classic literature and philosophy to navigate these inquiries of his, invoking Kafka, Nietzsche, and Roland Barthes and quoting from Toni Morrison and Mary Oliver. Readers may be better advised to turn to these authors for more spirited explorations of the same themes that motivate Old. Even so, the author imbues each chapter with the essence of the past, painting a vivid portrait of American boyhood in the 20th century.  

A tale that ranges widely in scope but is disconnected.