Every Anxious Wave

December 1, 2015
A punk-rock time-travel love story for the ages--all of them. When Karl Bender finds a time machine in his closet, he does what any other 40-year-old former musician would do: goes to every awesome concert he can think of. Naturally, he and his friend Wayne quickly set up a side business sending customers from his bar into the past, but only for rock concerts, judging those who choose Woodstock over his favorites, like Elvis Costello in New York, 1991, and Stereolab in Chicago, 1998. Concerts are it, and there are lots of rules; changing the past is not permitted. After Wayne goes rogue by trying to save John Lennon's life and gets stuck in 1980 Manhattan, Karl hunts for an astrophysicist to get his friend back and finds Lena Geduldig, a Northwestern student who's down on her luck and willing to help in part because she loved Karl's old band. Lena and Karl start breaking all the rules of time travel, both for Wayne and for their blossoming relationship--and then Karl gets an email from his future self, breaking his life wide open. As the plot begins to time travel along with Karl, the story stays true to its core and is easy to follow, with new revelations on each journey. Daviau is ferocious with her sad and flawed characters, whose pain propels the story through several iterations. Because the tale keeps changing with every visit to the future, the book doesn't end the way even its characters expect it to but is satisfying nonetheless. A dark and funny love story that, like its main characters, is much sweeter than it appears on the surface.

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January 1, 2016
The use of time travel in fiction requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. In Daviau's debut, bartender Karl Bender, washed-up former guitarist for a feminist indie-rock sensation, discovers a wormhole in his closet. With the ingenuity of his friend Wayne, who uses Google-Maps navigation, a few laptops, and a phone app, the two start up a business for hipsters whose sole purpose is to attend rock concerts of the past. (Who wouldn't want to see Elliott Smith in 1997 at TTs in Boston?) When Wayne gets stuck way back in the year 980, Karl hires Lena, a damaged, tattooed, chunky, punk astrophysicist, and, after years living with a broken heart, he finds himself in love. Of course, their unenforceable rule to not mess with the past is ignored, and the present is irrevocably changed. What begins as comic turns much darker as Lena goes back in time to attempt to avoid a traumatic event, and Karl jumps into an apocalyptic future to set things right in this melancholy, yet improbably hopeful novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2016

Bar owner Karl Bender falls into a wormhole in his closet but is retrieved from his trip to the past by his ringing cell phone. Soon, he and friend Wayne launch a successful time-travel business, using the wormhole and a laptop computer to send people back a few decades to hear their favorite bands. Inevitably, they begin to think about changing the past. Then Karl mistakenly sends Wayne back to Manhattan in 980, from which he cannot be easily returned. Karl scours the physics departments of local universities to find someone who might be able to bring Wayne back. Enter Lena Geduldig, astrophysicist. In their search for a means of reclaiming Wayne, Karl and Lena fall in love, change their past, almost lose each other, and reunite with the help of their future daughter. VERDICT Hopwood Award-winning author Daviau writes with humor and compassion, creating absorbing, sympathetic characters and enveloping serious questions about love and life-changing events in a balloon of mind-bending time travels. Readers of all types of fiction will enjoy. [See Prepub Alert, 8/17/15.]--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015

When genial bar owner Karl Bender finds a time-traveling wormhole, he and best buddy Wayne build a brisk business selling access to those who want to skip back a few decades to hear their favorite bands. (How cool is that?) All's well until Karl accidentally returns Wayne not to 1980s Manhattan but 980s Mannahatta Island. Oops. Daviau is winner of the University of Michigan's prestigious Hopwood Award.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.