The Boy in His Winter

by Norman Lock

Release: May 2014
Format: Novel
Genre: Mainstream
Audience: Adults
Content: Time Phenomena
Original Language: English

After Huck Finn and Jim fall asleep on an appropriated raft in Hannibal, Mo., they find themselves floating down the Mississippi for decades without ever aging a day themselves.

— Michael Main

We came by the raft dishonestly. We’d only meant to do a little fishing. It was cool and nice under the big willow with its whips trailing over the water. Christ, it was a scorcher of a day. The whole town must have fallen asleep, along with Jim and me. When we finally did wake, if we ever did, the raft was too far along in space and time to return it. We could no longer reverse ourselves, our motions in all five dimensions, than fly to the moon.

DEBUT

The Boy in His Winter (Bellevue Literary Press, May 2014).

VARIANTS

2 English variants

PRIOR WORKS: inspired by Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1800 to 1899
Circa AD 1900 to 1929
Circa AD 1930 to 1939: no significant stops
Circa AD 1940 to 1949: no significant stops
Circa AD 1950 to 1959: no significant stops
Circa AD 1960 to 1969: Jim got off and was lynched
Circa AD 1970 to 1999: no significant stops
Circa AD 2000 to 2099: The trip ends in 2005, but the story continues through 2077.

Timeline Models

Outside of Time: “I had no adequate theory to explain why the raft was able to travel through time. The water at the river’s source, Minnesota’s Lake Itasca, was also traveling into the future. For all I know, it may go on forever, and with it, the piece of river that had seized our raft and held us fast in timelessness.”

Themes

Free Will, Fate, and Determinism: “Do you believe in free will, Jim?”

“Is there a more ridiculous question to ask a slave?” he said, laughing, and for a moment, I hated him.
Unusual Aging: “I got on the raft with Jim when I was thirteen and got off for the last time—by myself, for Jim had perished—at the same age. One hundred and seventy years had gone, but I hadn’t changed, though my mind must have.

Real-World Tags

American Civil War
Indigenous Americans: a brief story of a Choctaw man
Katrina
Siege of Vicksburg
Slavery

Fictional Tags

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From Hannibal, Mo., 1835 ⋙ to Louisiana, 2005. Multiple trips. Note: Huck (through 2005) and Jim (through 1960) spent nearly all of this time on the raft, unaging and outside of time, but they’re still able to see the river banks and towns around them as time goes by.