Time's Fool tells the tale of Edmund Lea, a young man condemned to eternity alone until he determines how to lift the curse upon him. Edmund perpetually rides a phantom train—except on Christmas Eve every seven years, when he is allowed to revisit his English hometown. He tries to break the spell by way of love, repentance, and death—all in vain. Time passes, from 1970 to 2019, but Edmund remains seventeen, unable to age but watching the world grow older. Infused with a dark humor and an almost unbearable nostalgia, Time's Fool is a brilliant achievement, "classic yet hip, stylized yet inventive" (Scotsman).
Excerpt
If I could have avoided what I had to tell
I gladly would have, but my day had dawned,
my voice had meaning: 'Look. We are in Hell.'
So my reflection said. I saw beyond
his shoulder the dark wind and the wild trees
waving to the sky, and a grey wound
of sky was where the darkness was least,
an opening or a closing where a hole
was yellow almost with a feel of west,
while the train groaned beneath us on the rail
and didn't go. His smoke had crossed the floor
and voyaged through my hands. I'd been in Hell
for fourteen years. I rose to meet his stare
and held it, speaking: 'This day, I believe,
I shall be briefly freed, because this hour
I've recognized my language, in yourself.
I've counted to this day and now it's come.
For I was damned to this on Christmas Eve
and don't know why, how long, or in whose name.'
Glen turned his stare unchanging to the glass,
then turned it down. He sat there for a time,
but suddenly relaxed, and with a voice
from somewhere low and sad he asked my name...
(with those years chiefly considered)
1. The Chance in Hell1
1984 and 1977
2. We Did It in Music45
1984
3. My First Poem89
The Train and 1970
4. The Once133
1970 and the Train
5. Mallarea177
1991
6. A Child's Recorder221
1998
7. Demundo265
2005
8. Still to Want You Gone309
2012
9. The Candle Palace353
2019
Overview
Time's Fool tells the tale of Edmund Lea, a young man condemned to eternity alone until he determines how to lift the curse upon him. Edmund perpetually rides a phantom train—except on Christmas Eve every seven years, when he is allowed to revisit his English hometown. He tries to break the spell by way of love, repentance, and death—all in vain. Time passes, from 1970 to 2019, but Edmund remains seventeen, unable to age but watching the world grow older. Infused with a dark humor and an almost unbearable ...