March 25, 2019
Grunwald (The Irresistible Henry House) delivers a satisfying supernatural romance about lovers brought together across time. In December 1937, Joe Reynolds, a railway worker from Queens, meets an oddly dressed woman in Grand Central Station. Joe thinks Nora, who is dressed like a ’20s flapper, looks like she’s lost and offers to walk her home. She accepts, but as they approach her wealthy neighborhood, she disappears the moment he turns his back. She reappears each December, and each time vanishes when she strays too far from Grand Central. Eventually, by returning to the address where Nora told him she lives, Joe pieces together that Nora died in 1925, and, with the parameters of her existence set, Nora and Joe try to build a life within the walls of the station, dining at the Oyster Bar and meeting in rooms at the Biltmore Hotel. But as Joe ages and struggles to balance his love for Nora with the needs of his extended family, Nora stays the same age, living free from responsibility. Grunwald uses Grand Central well as a microcosm for exploring the changes to New York and the U.S. between the Depression and WWII, but the love story at the book’s heart relies too much on magic, and simmering tensions (such as Joe’s controlling nature) remain underdeveloped. Despite this, readers who enjoyed Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife will be enchanted.
April 1, 2019
Grunwald's latest is a quirky ghost story set in Grand Central Station. Joe is a Grand Central leverman, the railway equivalent of an air traffic controller. It is 1937, and Joe, 32, is crossing the Main Concourse when he first encounters Nora. She is coatless although it is winter. Her dress is antiquated and somewhat shabby, particularly for someone who says she lives in the tony Turtle Bay Gardens neighborhood. Flashbacks reveal that Nora, a 23-year-old art student, had just returned from Paris when she was fatally injured in a subway accident. On Dec. 5, 1925, at 7:05 a.m., she died, lying in a pool of sunlight among other crash victims on the marble floor of the Main Concourse. She has been reappearing sporadically since her death--but only on Dec. 5 at 7:05 a.m. and only if a Manhattanhenge sunrise shines through the east windows. When she ventures too far outside the Grand Central complex, she vanishes. Joe and Nora, who have fallen in love, wonder how to assure her continuous presence. Is there an allowable distance she can stray? In 1941, finagling free rooms in the Biltmore (accessible from inside the terminal), they set up a household of sorts. But then comes Pearl Harbor. Joe's "essential personnel" status keeps him at home, but when his brother, Finn, enlists, Joe shoulders responsibility for Finn's wife and children. The war, and the dawning realization that Nora can never age or live normally while Joe will grow old, puts pressure on the couple. Much of the novel is taken up solving the supernatural logistics, which can be intriguing. Although the history of Grand Central is fascinating in itself--who knew there was once an art school there?--the dimensions of the story are as tightly circumscribed as Nora's material world. Despite the static narrative, rendered more so by the leisurely pace, the characters come alive and make us want them to stay that way. The ending comes as a satisfying surprise. An ingenious and winsome novel.
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May 1, 2019
The latest from Grunwald (The Irresistible Henry House) is a World War II-set historical with a sprinkle of magic. It takes place in New York's Grand Central Terminal, where Joe, a leverman who moves the trains, meets Nora, a lovely young woman wearing old-fashioned clothing. After they enjoy a few perfect hours together, Nora simply disappears. Joe determines that Nora was killed years ago in a train crash at Grand Central, and that her yearly appearances occur when the sunlight shines on the city in a special way called Manhattanhenge. Thus starts the story of an ordinary working guy in love with a ghostly woman and how they make their relationship work--and sometimes not work. When his brother Finn goes off to fight in Europe, Joe looks after his wife and their two children. The history of World War II is a big part of the narrative, but Grand Central is a setting as well as a major character, and Grunwald describes its nooks and crannies with detail and delight. VERDICT In the vein of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, this sweetly told tale explores love within restraints such as time, aging, location, and social class divisions.--Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC
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