The History of Now

By Daniel Klein

Small. almost imperceptible changes are rippling through the New England village of Grandville, altering it in ways its inhabitants cannot yet imagine. Laced through a narrative of one recent year in Grandville's history are stories that reach back to a 17th century family in Rotterdam, and 18th century migration by a farmer's lonely son in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a 19th century underground railway journey by a gifted runaway slave. Each episode comes to bear on Grandville now.Klein frames this multi-layered story with some fundamental questions in philosophy: Does every event, no matter how small or distant in the past influence all events that follow? Is life merely a drama we dispassionately observe? Does it take courage to live in the "eternal now?"In Grandville, Wendell DeVries, the 65-year-old projectionist at the local movie theater, meets an attractive divorcee and an unexpected love affair blooms; Franny, Wendell's daughter and leader of the town's drama group, is confronted by a newcomer from New York City who insists that her politically correct play be produced, sending Franny into a spiral of self-doubt; Lila, Franny's teenage daughter hears a lecture at her high school that convinces her she has African blood in her veins, leading her to discover long lost black relatives living nearby; the high school's guidance counselor, is contacted by a man claiming to be a recruiter from Harvard who dubiously persuades him that his daughter is a shoe-in for acceptance if he follows his advice, a false promise that enrages him; while thousands of miles away, in a mountain village in Columbia, a young man named Hector begins a journey that will lead him to Grandville where he will alter the lives of everyone he meets.As a portrayal of small town life, The History of Now is reminiscent of Richard Russo's glorious novels about rural America. Its everyday encounters ring true, its dialogue glitters with wit, and its seamlessly integrated storylines create a consummate picture of one small place ineluctably connected to all places.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Permanent Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781579622411

Daniel Klein

Daniel Klein is the co-author of the international bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar. He is a Harvard graduate in philosophy and an acclaimed writer of both fiction and non-fiction. When not enjoying the slow life on Greek islands, he lives in Massachusetts with his wife. He is seventy-four years old.

Reviews for The History of Now

[jaylia3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I did not enjoy this book as much as I hoped to, but I think it will have its audience. It's driven by plot, setting and, to some extent, ideas, rather than getting into the hearts and minds of its characters, which is my preference. It has an omniscient narrator who directly addresses the reader as in, "We shall speed ahead here . . .", a technique I find irritating and distracting. The title and opening epigraph are intriguingly thought provoking, but the book ends with a bold-text, paragraph-long moral, as if the author didn't trust the power of his story or understanding of his reader. What drew me to this book initially was believing it might resemble Rebecca Goldstein's "philosophical" novel, The Mind Body Problem, a character driven book full of ideas that I'm still thinking about, that inspired me to research and read other books, fiction and nonfiction. This book with its dictated be-here-now message doesn't hold the same charm for me.

[nperrin_8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The History of Now, by Daniel Klein, opens by recounting an arson, one that will facilitate the commercial development of an important block in downtown Grandville, a quintessential small New England town nestled in the Berkshires. Part of that block will become the Phoenix, a theatre designed to draw a regional crowd, and a great success until the age of the silver screen.The chain of events that leads to the opening of the Phoenix brings up the philosophical thread of the novel right from the beginning—how did we get where we are now? With “now” so precariously balanced on the chain of events that preceded it, how can we know when it really begins or ends? In the case of the Phoenix, that chain of events included: the arson; the membership of Hans deVries in the group of developers; the desire of Hans’s charming wife Françoise for a theatre in the town; Françoise’s idea to send the architect to Quebec City where he will have a tryst with her cousin and realize how badly he wants to design a spectacular theatre.The main action takes place in the Grandville of today, still a place of townies and second-homers, but updated with a Japanese restaurant, Iraq war protesters, and permanently transplanted New Yorkers who want to live a rustic post-9/11 life. This Grandville is perfectly drawn, and frequent trips back in time show us bits and pieces of how it ended up that way.The book seems at first mostly focused on these larger historical questions, but there is a smaller but perhaps more interesting display of the importance of cause and effect in the characters’ interactions with each other. Lila deVries, for example, an alienated high school student in the present day, overhears her classmate Stephanie crying alone in the gym and, acting in the only human way possible, goes to comfort her. But she does not trust Stephanie, believes she is crying for selfish or pathetic reasons, and later refuses to continue with any sort of friendship because she thinks she knows the type of girl she is dealing with. We, of course, know how wrong Lila is, how wrong she gets Stephanie’s motivations, but without knowing how Stephanie came to be in that gym by herself Lila can only fill in the blanks with her own prejudice.A great source of human misunderstanding: one character cannot comprehend the actions of another without knowing his motivation, so the actions of “now” aren’t just about “now” but about everything before that brought them about. This microcosmic representation of the issue is critical; the history of Grandville and the deVries family is good, but too big-picture, I think, to really convey the importance of the theme on its own.Most of the flashbacks deal with the distant past, and there are years’ worth of blanks in the timeline so that we can’t see every link in the chain (a pattern nicely mirrored in the research of a historian studying a runaway slave who would become a deVries forebear). But in one contemporary case we can see straight back from Grandville to the mountains of Colombia, where a family in tragic straits will flee to Bogotá, and later the oldest son will move slowly north to join the rest of the cast in New England. Here even the most minor of characters suddenly becomes key and the seemingly jarring tale of a Colombian refugee begins to make sense. And it’s all so precarious: if Hector had not done this, if Pato had not done that…where would we be?Toward the end, a community college philosophy professor provides a vehicle to make the themes a bit more explicit; the result is a little didactic but not heavy-handed. The writing didn’t really pop for me, but the descriptions and characterizations were spot-on and deVries family life completely enchanting. In the end I am also struck by the secretiveness of many of the characters. We don’t always want others to know why we do things; those reasons can be personal, private, and painful. But without those reasons we’ll be disconnected, from the past, from “now,” and from the future which can only continue from the present.

[airycat_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After reading the jacket notes for The History of Now by Daniel Klein, I was expecting a book that might be more philosophy than fiction, a bit heavier reading than I usually expect from fiction. I was delightedly surprised to find that, although still rich with philosophical questions, this was a very readable story. At first, the history of Grandville's theater seemed to be a bit of a slow start. As I continued to read, it helped create the reality of the place. I wasn't simply plopped into 'anytown' and left to create the atmosphere in my own imagination. Klein's historical detail also provides vital information for the kinds of questions the story may raise. We can see part of why Wendell, Franny and Lila are the people they are in this history. Their history is part of their lives, as is anyone's. It is part of what makes Grandville the town it is.No character was too minor for Klein to make real. Although some of the depictions are clearly from the deVries family's point of view and a bit one sided, Klein still managed to portray them clearly enough for the reader to see that one-sidedness for what it was. They manage to be both individuals and archetypes of small town life. If I walked into Grandville I would know each of the characters from this book as soon as I met them. I feel like I know them, and that's always a sign of a good story.The plot itself is simple. It's the chronicle of a year in the life of the deVries family. Events in their lives are both mundane and dramatic. Klein find the right emphasis to create anticipation and resolution. It kept me interested all the way.Not every question posed by the story is answered; not every problem is solved, but this is how life is and there is no sense of this being an incomplete story. The one disappointment I have is with Hector's story. His life and how he gets to Grandville is compelling, yet there is nothing of his story once he gets to Grandville. We don't really see how the deVries family has changed him, nor and see only a bit of how he changes them (if, indeed, change is the right word in either case). Neither do we get any idea of the cultural differences and the difficulties they can cause. I wanted to see these things and the kinds of questions they could raise. Having invested as much as he did in Hector's early story, his impact in Grandville did not match my expectations. (And yet, as I think about it, I can think of several apparently unimpressive people in my own life whose history can easily match Hector's.)Still, this desire for more is as much because of the richness and satisfaction of the deVries/Grandville' stories, as for any sense of incompleteness. I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in Grandville and the deVries' lives. I will have no problem recommending this book to others.

[gwendydd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very enjoyable read. It may not be the most original book ever written, but the characters are lovable, the writing is absorbing, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.In many ways, it's unoriginal: it's the story of a small town in Massachusetts. There's a typical array of characters: the old man whose family has been in the town for generations and who's life hasn't changed for years, the teenage girl trying to break out of stifling small-town life, the newcomer busy-body who upsets the balance, the father trying to make his daughter live out his own ambitions, etc.Klein is a little heavy-handed about the philosophical point he is trying to make in this book. The book focuses on one particular year in the lives of a handful of characters, but there are occasional tangents into the town's past history and the actions of characters very far away. The point of these tangents is to demonstrate that all actions have effects hundreds of years down the road and thousands of miles away; everyone and everything is connected. The story itself demonstrates this rather trite point quite clearly. Unfortunately, Klein hits the reader over the head with this point by making a philosophy professor rather suddenly become an important and heroic character at the end of the book, while expounding on the point that all actions are connected and all past actions have an effect on now (hence the title). I would have enjoyed the book much more if it had just been titled "Grandville, Massachusetts" and if the philosophy professor hadn't become the hero at the end by giving little mini-lectures on philosophy. (The fact that Klein's philosophical credentials are touted all over the cover doesn't help this perception - it makes it clear that he considers this novel an opportunity to teach a philosophical lesson.)Those gripes aside, I still think the book deserves 4 stars. The writing is very engaging, the characters are charming, and the story was entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.

[biblioholic29 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

EARLY REVIEWERIn 1896 an unknown arsonist burned down the Melville Block of Grandville, Massachusetts, after which a small group of well-to-do men banded together to rebuild that block bigger and better than ever. One addition to the block was The Phoenix, an ornate theater that houses first traveling operas and revues and later becomes home to the cinematic greats. One family's fate is irrevocably linked with that theater.In The History of Now, we focus on various members of the DeVries family through a year in their lives. What makes this book so fascinating is it's exploration of the idea that focusing on one family, doesn't mean following them only. We spend time with a young man in the slums of Bogota, Columbia; a runaway slave on the underground railroad; and a 17th century Dutch family; all of whom have a direct influence on events in this small town family's life.Klein, who coauthored Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a philosophy professor. This book is a look at cause and effect and the idea that every decision and action has an effect on subsequent events. The title comes from the idea that if every effect is also a cause, then what really is now? The History of Now is ideal for book clubs, philosophy buffs and anyone who just likes a good story with believable characters. This is one of the best books I've read in years and I look forward to more from the author.

[mzonderm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a story about life in a small town in western Massachusetts, this book isn't bad. Unfortunately, it tries to be a lot more than that. Many chapters begin with vaguely interesting historical vignettes about the ancestors of the family at the center Then we have the story of Hector as he moves from rural Colombia to Bogota to Miami to Connecticut and finally to Grandville. At first, I found his story the most compelling of all, even if it was all too predictable how he would eventually figure into the main story. Unfortunately, once Hector gets to Grandville, his voice disappears, making one wonder what the point was of giving us so much of his story to begin with. So I had to ask myself, why did Klein throw so much else into his story?