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.