The Day Tripper is author James Goodhand’s first published adult novel, but he has previously penned two young adult books, Last Lesson and Man Down. For about the past twenty years, he has earned a living as an auto mechanic, which he enjoys and finds satisfying. He is also a musician who did not formally study writing, an impressive fact considering how skillfully written and memorable The Day Tripper is. He says he often gets story ideas during walks in the woods near the home in England he shares with his wife and son.

“What if you woke up each morning on a different random day of your life?” That’s the premise of the story that opens in 1995. Alex Dean is twenty years old, has been admitted to Cambridge University, and has been dating twenty-one-year-old Holly, who is studying to become a doctor, for just five weeks. But he already knows she is the woman for him because “becoming the person I should be for her is more important than seeing her,” he notes in the first-person narrative Goodhand effectively employs to relate Alex’s story. Alex grew up a loner who hid in his room playing his guitar and earning excellent grades. Their perfect date is blissful until he encounters Blake Benfield for the first time in four years. Alex admits that “just hearing that name in [his] head” can paralyze him. Clearly, they have a troubled history (revealed later in the story). Suddenly, Benfield strikes him, but Alex is incapable of defending himself or fighting back, leaving him puzzled and frustrated. “Why do I pity him?” he asks himself. Benfield beats him so badly that he blacks out and plunges into the Thames River.

Next, he wakes up hungover in a dank room that is barely twice the size of the single bed on which he has been sleeping. Dirty clothes are scattered about, and the windowsill is littered with empty bottles and cigarette butts. Emerging into a dark hallway, he encounters Kenzie, a young woman he does not recognize, in the kitchen. But she obviously knows him and seems accustomed to Alex being confused on mornings that follow a night of blackout drinking. She responds to his inquiries with sad amusement, but Alex finds no humor in Kenzie’s revelation that it is November 2010. Fifteen years since Alex’s violent encounter with Benfield. He cannot figure out why he has no recollection of fifteen years of his life. Is it a joke? Or has he been in some sort of fugue state? The landlord is banging on his door, demanding payment of past rent, but his focus is immediately on Holly. Where is she?

Making his way back to the bar by the river, he runs into Jazz, a young man who, like Kenzie, is acquainted with him and fills in some of the details about the life Alex has been living. He also goes to Holly’s home and has a deeply disturbing verbal altercation with her father. Readers learn that something terrible happened a couple of years ago, for which her father blames Alex. In fact, he reminds Alex that he is violating an injunction prohibiting him from having any contact with Holly’s family.

When he next wakes up, he finds himself in 2019, and with each successive visit to another time period, Alex begins to piece together not only what has happened to him, but also the fates of the people who mean the most to him. His visits to his parents’ home are particularly poignant and revelatory, as Goodhand demonstrates how much Alex loves and admires his mother, the dynamics of his parents’ marriage, and Alex’s troubled relationship with his father. He is often baffled by the things he learns from other characters but recognizes that he cannot express his confusion or the circumstances in which he finds himself with them because they would surely think he is delusional. Perhaps he is. But he confirms that his life has continued uninterrupted, even though he does not remember anything that happened to him after Benfield knocked him into the river. He pieces together that he has barely eked out a living as a street performer, playing his guitar and singing, and he never attended Cambridge. Holly is no longer in his life. And he is an alcoholic.

Alex recalls a conversation with Holly on that fateful day before everything went wrong. They discussed cause and effect. “This life I’m experiencing is all effect. But what of the cause? What has led me to this?” Alex asks himself. He meets Dr. Paul Defrates, a mysterious scientist who calls himself an expert on Alex’s situation, studying the phenomenon in a quest to fully understand it. (Goodhand injects a plot twist involving Paul that is shocking and brilliant.) As they meet from time to time during different time periods, Paul tends to ask many thought-provoking questions, but provide few answers. He suggests approaches Alex might pursue in his effort to escape his predicament. Because Alex is intent on finding a way out and restoring his life to a linear progression. With Paul’s help, he begins to find that if he does something different on an earlier date, circumstances are in fact different when he wakes up at a later time in his life.

Goodhand says his uncle, an alcoholic lost to addiction at the young age of thirty-nine, was “a lot of the inspiration behind Alex’s story.” His research revealed that his uncle suffered trauma in his early life and that made him wonder, “What does that do to somebody?” He concluded those experiences may have been catalysts for his uncle’s troubles and employed that concept in what he describes as “an investigation into why things have gone wrong for Alex, what those small decisions are, and what small decisions he can make at the right times that divert him from” alcoholism, instead of “just reaching for” a drink. In The Day Tripper, he wanted to explore very serious subject matter but “lighten it by looking at it through the lens of a high concept idea.” That is “why readers see Alex both at his worst and his best” as they develop an understanding of the trajectory of Alex’s life and, hopefully, refrain from judging him or others struggling with addiction.

As the story proceeds, Goodhand explores Alex’s relationships both with Benfield and his father, who he knows he has bitterly disappointed. They have both bullied and belittled Alex through the years. Alex comes to appreciate that “by focusing hate back on them, he is being dragged into their game, expending negative energy, when what he needs to do is remove himself from their control.” His progression toward maturity and wisdom is gradual and not without hiccups as Alex realizes that he has been subjected to toxic masculinity and succumbed to its influence on his life choices.

The Day Tripper is an expertly crafted and refreshingly inventive tale. As Alex’s journey careens into the future and back to the past, Goodhand illustrates how his actions have impacted not only his life, but the lives of those with whom he interacts. It is an emotional journey both for Alex and readers as he realizes how profoundly he has hurt people he loves and grapples with his guilt, remorse, and regrets. And grows increasingly desperate to alter the future that has been revealed to him. Alex is likable, endearing, and empathetic because readers can relate to his distress about his mistakes and desire to un-do them. At one point, his “beautiful, perfect Holly” is gone from his life – they agreed “right person, wrong time” – and Alex declares that he is “broken by booze.”

But Goodhand gives Alex enviable opportunities to change both his past and the future, and the story becomes hopeful and affirming as Alex begins to implement changes that bring about better results. The dialogue flows naturally and believably, and Goodhand’s prose is deceptively profound and emotionally resonant. He viscerally conveys Alex’s inner turmoil, and Alex’s ruminations about Goodhand’s themes are richly thought-provoking and beautifully crafted.

“Ultimately,” Goodhand says, “it’s a love story,”. Alex’s overriding and unwavering motivation to understand and extricate himself from his predicament is his intense desire to win Holly back. Alex does “infuriating things” and even when his goal is almost in his grasp, he manages to “miss it.” Watching him fumble his chances and learn from his failures is absorbing, entertaining, and frequently heartbreaking. And suspenseful. Will he figure out how to get his life on track and find happiness?

The Day Tripper, despite dark moments, is an optimistic meditation on one deceptively simple truth: “Change doesn’t happen by accident,” but is possible. Goodhand illustrates that the power of love can and does inspire and facilitate positive change through an intriguing story populated with memorable and fully developed characters. The Day Tripper establishes Goodhand as a creative and talented writer storyteller, leaving readers anxious to read more from him.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book. ( )

I love the premise of The Day Tripper by James Goodhand. The first person narration embeds the reader in Alex's confusion and his dilemmas. At the same time, the first person narration makes it difficult for me as a reader to find an anchor or to "get to know" Alex. Perhaps, that is the entire point of the book. We don't know another's perspective. In order or out of order, we see the world as we see it not as it may actually be.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2024/03/the-day-tripper.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher’s blog tour. ( )

An emotional, character-driven time travel story, this book captures your heart.

Alex Dean isn't living his life in order. After a fateful injury, he begins randomly experiencing days from his life. One moment, he's in love and about to go off to Cambridge, the next moment he's years in the future, living in a dump and getting visits from his parole officer. Alex's desperate search to find out what went wrong and why he lost Holly will give him the chance to save his life.

I fell in love with Alex and Holly, despite Alex's terrible, but understandable, choices. The moments with he and Holly in the beginning were so sweet, which made it so bitter once the reader - and Alex himself - realized that he lost it all. As he started to put the pieces together, I was rooting for him so hard to find a way to change the course of his life.

Part love story, part reflection on the impact of our decisions, this book kept me hooked from the moment Alex woke up in his dreary future.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy of this book.

Trigger warnings: alcoholism, sexual abuse ( )