TIME ON MY HANDS: A Novel with Photographs [Hardcover]

Peter Delacorte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 11, 1997

A physicist who has developed a time machine offers travel writer Gabriel Prince the opportunity to go back in time if he will change history by keeping Ronald Reagan from becoming America's fortieth president. 35,000 first printing."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Here's a genre you don't run into every day--a political time-travel novel. If you enjoyed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, or Back to the Future you'll definitely want to give this a tumble. A brilliant physicist has discovered a time machine from the 22d century languishing in an obscure Paris technical museum, but is too old to try it out himself. Fortunately he meets up with a bored travel writer (our hero) who is up for the mission. The physicist, a political liberal, has only one request of him: when you go back in time, divert B-movie actor Ronald Reagan from becoming president. The writer makes the trip (several times), meets Reagan (several times), but ... well, let's just say changing the entire course of modern American politics isn't easy. And there's the additional problem of falling in love with a luscious blonde who's been dead since 1938.

From Library Journal

Delacorte's third novel (following Games of Chance, LJ 11/15/80) features clever, amiable Gabriel Prince, who like Jack Finney's protagonist in Time and Again is a firm believer in his own personal destiny. Travel writer Prince meets eccentric Jasper Hudnut, a disaffected ex-physics professor with an H.G. Wellsian time machine and a single-minded obsession to change history's course by preventing Ronald Reagan from becoming president. Soon, Prince is undertaking the ultimate journey?back to 1938 Hollywood?to steer young actor Dutch Reagan into a different career path. Complicating his plan are the beautiful young starlet with whom he falls in love; a suspicious, malevolent screenwriter; and two murderous Frenchmen from the 22nd century intent on recovering their stolen property: a time machine that is beginning to malfunction dangerously. The downbeat ending may disappoint some readers, but this is a memorable, extraordinarily intelligent piece of fiction writing with a strong sense of time(s) and place(s).?Jo Manning, Miami Beach, Fla.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (June 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684826518
• ISBN-13: 978-0684826516
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,151,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lost Time Evocatively Recreated, October 10, 2000

By 

Richard Taylor "WRITER" (Cambria, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time on My Hands (Paperback)

Peter Delacort's Time on My Hands is a very successful time travel story in the tradition of Jack Finney and Richard Matheson. Unlike them, however, Peter chooses to add a controversial element -- the presidency of Ronald Reagan and what things might be like if his political career were stopped before it began. This is dangerous stuff for a time travel novel -- Reagan's supporters are legion, and they remember the old man with great affection. I was more than doubtful when I purchased the book for this very reason. While not a Reaganite myself, I respect Reagan as a past president who accomplished things. Still, even though Delacort's take on the Reagan presidency is not as kind as mine, he treats Dutch in such a way that you begin to like him as a character - flawed, it is true, but human and admirable. This novel's great strength is its recreation of 1930s Hollywood. Here Delacort shines like no other time travel novelist. He describes my native Los Angeles as no Angeleno ever has - and Peter's from our sister city to the north, San Francisco, whose denizens have not always been kind to the City of Angels. Peter Delacort recreates Malibu of the '30s, Warner Bros. (for whom I worked for 25 years, and so know quite well), the times, the people, the water they swim in, the political and social climate of a city that lays in wait for the archaeologist's spade and brush. In short, this is a great read on a number of levels. I can't recommend it more.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it and think, April 28, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Time on My Hands (Paperback)

I can't believe how many of the reviewers didn't like the end. The end is fabulous and chilling.

As someone below warns, this book is about a man travelling back in time to prevent Ronald Reagan from being president. My politics lean to the left, so initially I was not offended by the thought. Later on, I did start to get offended. But that is part of what makes this book so great. It gives you a lot to chew on.

Think about this: You can change any bit of history you want, and this guy chooses to prevent Reagan from becoming president. Why? Why not Nixon? He arguably did more harm. Why not prevent one of the wars or prevent one of the assassinations in the 1960s or save a child's life or do something to improve economic conditions in one of the poorer nations? They do give a bit of explanation for this at the front of the book, but there's something that occurs later in the book that discounts the explanation.

So read this book even if you do lean to the right. Think about if you had a time machine, what would you do?

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It should have been a fantastic book., October 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: TIME ON MY HANDS: A Novel with Photographs (Hardcover)

I love time travel stories and I love political stories. I should have loved Time on My Hands, but I didn't. Far from it, I found its characters, other than its hero Gabriel Prince, unidimensional, espcially the 27-year-old Ronald Reagan, who's portrayed as a near-retarded simpleton. In addition, the treatment of time-travel is confusing and unsatisfying. A truly great time travel story, in my opinion, is one where the time traveler acts in such a way that I'm prompted to say, "Yes! That's exactly what I'd do." Prince is the complete opposite. He's got a time machine, and can go whenever he wants, yet he rushes every decision. In addition, after doing a lot of very interesting things with prince in the 1930's, it seems Delacorte gives up at the end, and can't adequately resolve it. I finished this book feeling genuinely uncomfortable and upset. I don't think this book had a soul, and I think that the last fifty pages should never have gotten past Delacorte's editor. If you're a sucker for time-travel, as I am, you'll still read it in one or two sittings, because it's gripping, but if you're at all like me, it'll be something of an unpleasant experience.