Finding that past love
Mitch Albom's time-travel novel 'Twice'
Mitch Albom’s 2025 novel Twice is at heart a romance, a romance about how love fits into every crevice of peoples’ lives. It also shows crevices often contain heartbreak.
Imagine - as this excellent book does - if when you screwed up, you could instantly throw yourself back in time and essentially redo the moment, wiping out entirely what had happened. Hoo-boy! I could have used that power a lot in my life. I used the wrong tense just then. I would love to have it handy for any meathead move I might make today.
Twice demonstrates that with all dreams and strange powers, there can be downsides and complications. Some in this book are funny. Some are tragic.
One strength of Albom’s book lies in the mechanism he uses to describe these time-travel/fix-it incidents. They are revealed through a journal being read by a cop who believes the main character - named Alfie Logan - has ripped off a casino for $3 million. It’s a clever device that helps keep the action moving with plenty of asides in interactions between the cop and Alfie. Alfie? Yup, he is named after the main character in the film ‘What’s It All About Alfie?’ And that’s all explained, too.
Alfie’s life is in many ways as ordinary as could be, even with his back-in-time maneuvers. He has friends, lovers, jobs, school, triumphs and tragedies - all of it.
The writing is deceptively simple. It makes for a fast-pace read if you want it to be. I could barely put it down as Alfie’s adventures and his often Twice! backward time jumps made me eager to read what strange turn the book and the power would reveal next.
The book has a wild ending that ties everything up as neatly as a Charles Dickens’ novel. I wish I could jump back myself and read the final pages and be as surprised as I was the first time.
Mitch Albom is a familiar name to many readers. I first heard of him because of his popular Tuesdays with Morrie. But he has 9 other books out, too, all of which I suspect I will start working my way through. Soon, I hope.