Backtracked (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Backtracked Elizabeth Bush Alcantara, Pedro de. Backtracked. Delacorte, 2009 256p. Library ed. ISBN 978-0-385-90433-9 $15.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-385-73419-6 $18.99 Ad Gr. 5–8 Tommy Latrella is sick of his status at home and school as a poor second to his deceased older brother, a firefighter who died in the Twin Towers collapse. Determined to catch a one-way bus out of town, he pauses to play a mean-spirited gag at the Port Authority terminal that endangers the life of a young girl and jolts Tommy back to the year 1918, where he’s forced to labor in a padrone’s work gang to keep body and soul together. The loss of a street boy he befriended and his involvement in a labor movement transport him to his next port in the past, 1932 amid the Great Depression, where he unwisely accepts the enticing offer of employment from a crime boss. One more violent encounter and moral awakening later, he lands in 1942 and enlists as a paratrooper. On his last night before shipping off to Italy, he tries to save a friend who has fallen on the subway tracks but ends up rescuing the girl he endangered at the onset of his time-shifting adventures. The portals that lead Tommy among various eras are cleverly devised; each is connected to some aspect of New York’s historical transit system, and Tommy often uses his wits and “future” information of neighborhoods and train lines to orient himself on vaguely familiar turf. His escapades would be considerably more involving, though, if they weren’t quite so heavily freighted with glaring life lessons and an overextended dénouement. Alcantara supplements his tale with notes on the historical periods Tommy visits. While this never fully succeeds as fantasy, historical fiction, or contemporary problem novel, readers who enjoy exploring the hazier edges of those genres might want to hitch a ride. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois