Time Travel discussion

One Red Thread By Ernie Wood



When architect Eddy McBride, a fortysomething self-absorbed noticer of details and self-appointed seeker of truths, stumbles upon a way to visit, watch and ultimately participate in events from his family history, he finds answers to long-ago tragedies and mysteries. But each time Eddy returns to the present, he unleashes the unhappy consequences of exploring history on his family and friends. And as Eddy's knowledge of the past grows, he turns from curious seeker of truths to frantic fixer of mistakes--present, past and by those from the present who would change the past--as he follows a devastating trail of hurt, disappearance and death.

This month will see four lucky winners of this beautiful book. Two winners will be selected by the author for a hardback signed copy, an additional two winners will be chosen at random to receive an ebook copy.

This book has a publishing date of November 3rd. However being a time traveler myself I went into the future and was able to read this book. I have not finished it quite yet, but I personally endorse this book as a great one to have on your shelf. It is beautifully written. It has sucked me in as few books seldom do, the scenes are vivid and so believable.

Thank you Ernie for giving away your book here in the time travel group. Good luck to everyone. Answer the discussion question for a chance to win:

In ONE RED THREAD, the past is always there—or at least remnants of it are—in smells and sounds and the moving force of air. The effect is similar to that of light coming from a star, taking time to arrive so we see what used to be and not what’s there today. All you have to do is tune in.

So if you could sense smells, sounds or breeze/wind from your or your family’s past, what would you sense? Where would it take you? And why would that event or time be important to you? (Sorry, Mr. Proust, no madeleine cookies, no taste that conjures childhood. In ONE RED THREAD, the past lives in the air and arrives that way.)

Lincoln wrote: "So if you could sense smells, sounds or breeze/wind from your or your family’s past, what would you sense? Where would it take you? And why would that event or time be important to you? (Sorry, Mr. Proust, no madeleine cookies, no taste that conjures childhood. In ONE RED THREAD, the past lives in the air and arrives that way.) ..."

I walked into the women's restroom at an English pub yesterday and remarked that it smelled like my grandma's house. I'm not saying that my grandma's house smells like a restroom. I just think it was a combination of the aromas drifting in from the nearby kitchen plus the lemony hand soap.

I'm always reminded of my other grandmother's house when I smell super toasty toast.

There is a smell...that I can't really describe except to call it Essence of Ancient my grandmother's house possessed it. 50 to 75 year old churches that I sometimes attend possess it. It is the smell and the furniture and overall essence as I say. If walls could talk.

Amy and Lincoln - These are great examples! I was going to "prime the pump" for discussion with a couple of examples from the book, but you beat me to it. Here they are anyway. In ONE RED THREAD, characters experience time travel after hearing a high school marching band practicing and an extension ladder ratcheting upward, smelling lantana blooming in a neighbor's yard and lilies at a funeral, or feeling a warm Indian Summer breeze suddenly blow cold. Now back to the group....

Oh, like hearing a baseball game on the radio makes me remember by first father-in-law....

Oh wow...so my family has done the whole family vacation thing at Bear Lake on the boarder of Utah and Idaho. Summer of 2013...I have a very vivid memory of sitting in the boat watching others water ski (or attempt to water ski) My brother had Radioactive by Imagine Dragons blaring on the boat sound system. Anytime I hear that song now I remember the day out on the lake.

More recently just in August again vacationing at Bear Lake hanging out on the beach. My brother offered me mango flavored licorice. It was very delicious and flavorful. Just now at work my brother just offered me the same mango licorice and boom I am back at the beach suddenly.

The smells would take me back to New York City of my early childhood and the images that surrounded them. (No, not the garbage strikes.) I was born in a section of Brooklyn near the "Narrows" entrance to the NYC harbor, a neighborhood of modest homes and delis and restaurants. I didn't grow up there, but the many visits to extended family were a wonder of home cooking and city life. So it's the food and the sea scents on the breeze that would transport me to them and their era, and the sound of ships sounding fog horns in the night. I'd love to visit a time when these "elderly" aunts and uncles were young. The world has changed so much since then. Have people changed, too? That's what I'd want to see, history in living color.

Incredible imagery Paul.

LINCOLN—Hi Ernie, and thanks for doing a short Q&A on your novel “One Red Thread.” Let’s begin by asking you the same question you asked everyone else: If you could sense smells, sounds or breezes from your or your family’s past, what would you sense? Where would it take you?

ERNIE—And my thanks to you, Lincoln, for inviting me. As you can imagine, there are plenty of these sensory cues that take me places, but I’ll mention just one that popped into my brain today. It’s the old song “Green Door” from 1956. Every time I hear it, I’m 9 or 10 years old with my friend Alex, riding in his parents’ car. I can tell exactly where we were and where we were going, though that’s probably a composite of hundreds of times I heard that tune. Anyway, I put it in the book. So thinking about creating composites and twisting true events to fit a story, let’s see, just for fun, how the song plays out there:

… it came to me then, that old, mysterious, semi-hipster tune. Something, something. I couldn’t really remember the lyrics, but it was a story about some kind of speakeasy, people behind the door having a good time while the singer’s stuck outside.

And then there was a saxophone in the distance playing that same song. It played smoothly, stopped, then started again. Two or three times, it resumed at the same point in the music. Then it picked up a few bars later and noodled freely. Then it played the whole tune straight through, without stopping. I began slowly walking down the sidewalk, attentively following that saxophone from the florist shop down toward the house where I’d lived.

The sound was sweet, and when it was over, I found myself standing alone in my old front yard, applauding.

LINCOLN—So that song takes you to 1956. But your protagonist Eddy goes to many different times. Which is your favorite and why?

ERNIE—There are good and bad events in every period Eddy visits, but I’d have to pick the 1920s as the most pleasant. It’s a time of simple, domestic scenes. Late in the decade, Eddy encounters his blind great grandfather listening to the the New York Yankees on the radio. Then his grown daughters and son return home from the game, full of enthusiasm and carrying a baseball--
they'd caught a foul--autographed by Babe Ruth. It's a little story that makes the past appealing. But it's also an event that sets other events in motion. And it’s a significant contrast to earlier times, where Eddy encounters some pretty traumatic and violent happenings---and to later times, where he encounters his parents, family and friends--people he actually knew--in circumstances that aren't so happy, either.

LINCOLN—And speaking of characters, who’s your favorite one in this book?

ERNIE—There are only four characters in the present, though the earlier decades Eddy visits turn up plenty new ones. I've had readers try (somewhat successfully) to guess which of them I like the most. And they've told me the ones they like. But there is one that I keep coming back to--and that may be the best one to mention here to avoid any spoilers. It's a little cat named Ike, who appears all through the present-day portions of the story, watching the goings on and thinking, no doubt, in that quiet way cats do, that his people are making some big mistakes. Ike provides a kind of third-party insight, perhaps standing in for the reader, that something is about to go deeply wrong with this time travel business. Needless to say, it does.

I have been a passionate student of my family’s history for many years and can think of many places and times I would love to go back to in my search for answers to questions I have had. But the question, ”if you could sense smells, sounds or breeze/wind from your or your family’s past, what would you sense?” there is only one answer.

At the end of the Civil War my great-great grandfather, Harvey Annis, resigned his commission as an officer in the 51st U.S. Colored Troop and, together with his wife Ana and their baby daughter , boarded the riverboat S.S. Sultana at Vicksburg to return to their home in Oshkosh, Wis. Grossly overloaded with over 2,000 prisoners of war recently liberated from Andersonville, the Sultana’s boilers exploded just north of Memphis. The resulting fire doomed the boat and took the lives of over 1,800 men, women and children, including Harvey and his daughter. This was the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history and I cannot think of it without picturing the Sultana, engulfed in flames, drifting helplessly through the night, amidst the screams and moans of the dying. I can smell the fire and even feel the hellish heat on my face. If there were any senses from my family’s past that would draw me back, there is no question that that would be it.

Poignant, Tom. I'm sorry, though, I have to ask, probably I'm being stupid as well as insensitive... if Harvey died, how are you his descendant?

Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "Poignant, Tom. I'm sorry, though, I have to ask, probably I'm being stupid as well as insensitive... if Harvey died, how are you his descendant?"

Neither stupid nor insensitive. It took me a long time to figure it out myself. I'm descended Harvey fell ill towards the end of the war, which is the reason he applied for and was granted an early discharge. Ana left their three older children in Wisconsin and, taking their youngest daughter with her, went down to Vicksburg to care for him. I am descended from James Willis Annis, their third child, who was not aboard the Sultana. By the way, I was in error when I referred to the daughter who died as a baby. She was about seven when she died. Her name was Isabelle.

Ah. Good that the line survived, anyway.

Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "Ah. Good that the line survived, anyway."

A lot of mental health professionals will agree with you.

When I was a little girl we lived in a small town an hour south of portland and would walk to sunday school with my mom each week. 30 years later I was visiting a friend in the DC area and as we were walking through Georgetown I smelled something…shadows, earth, ivy and mortar and recognized it immediately as being identical to the one from the small church yard when I was 5. In all those years I hadn't even thought about it casually and was surprised that it was such an immediate recognition.

Probably the smell that takes me back is the smell of popcorn and fried chicken when my parents used to take me to the drive-in on the weekends to watch all those spaghetti westerns, horror and sci-fi movies from the 70's.

Amy wrote: "Lincoln wrote: "So if you could sense smells, sounds or breeze/wind from your or your family’s past, what would you sense? Where would it take you? And why would that event or time be important to ..."

The smell of Slo-Poke suckers takes me back to riding a school bus to a town 30 miles away in the summer for swimming lessons.

As far as songs, our family has always laughed about the connection we all have with certain songs from long car trips in the 70s. No tape decks or CDs; no satellite radios, so we heard the same pop tunes over and over on the radio. For example, "Afternoon Delight" from a trip to the Black Hills.

We come from West Texas,and the smell of leather and horse takes me back there when my grandfather took me back home to meet his brother and sister. They worked on a ranch and I feel in love with that way of life. Wish I could go back.

I was refilling my pen yesterday, and the smell of the Parker ink always takes me back to my early days at school (we actually used fountain pens and I never stopped). I remember the other fragrances too: the faint odour of varnish from the desk, boot polish, dust from the shoolyard, the beautiful smell of cedar from the pencil sharpener, the slightly musty smell of chalk dust and the magnificent smell of our new schoolbooks - one of my favourites. Ahhhh....school days!

Here is my review: One Red Thread

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

how about a "lost" scent? remember mimeograph tests from school in the 70s?

The two winners of a hardback signed copy of One Red Thread is:

TOM and LEISHA

CONGRATULATIONS!

but wait two more winners will receive a copy of One Red Thread in ebook format, those winners are:

AMY and CHERYL

Ernie is still working out the logistics with the publisher, to get your books to you, so please be patient.

Congratulations to all who won, and thank you all who participated. Thank you Ernie for offering your book as a giveaway. I for one loved this book as you can tell by my review posted previously...it is spoiler free, if anyone cares to read it.

Enjoy searching for the One Red Thread!

Lincoln wrote: "The two winners of a hardback signed copy of One Red Thread is:

TOM and LEISHA"

My thanks to you and Ernie. I look forward to reading it!

Thank you! I do look forward to it. :)