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FICTION

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TIME AND TIME AGAIN by Dennis Danvers (Simon & Schuster: $22; 300 pp.). Mainstream novels that deal with supernatural phenomena are usually most effective if, aside from one huge suspension of belief, (people can predict the future or be un-dead) every other aspect of life seems perfectly normal. Another important convention in this type of book is the scene where the Old Man explains to the Frightened Couple exactly why the Sacred Gods are so angry at them, thereby providing a helpful framework for the reader. Dennis Danvers’ second novel, “Time and Time Again,” is an engrossing, but flawed story of reincarnation that desperately needs more believability and explanation.

Marion Mead is doing research for a novel about a woman named Susanna Grier who was alive in the 1700s. When she meets Raymond Lord, a mysterious man who claims to have information for her book, Marion is instantaneously drawn to him. “He was smiling at me as if I were an old flame and he was overjoyed to see me. I smiled back, but I couldn’t say anything. I just stood there like a post. . . . My hand shook as I finally thought to offer it to him.”

Marion and Raymond have been lovers through the centuries, and much of “Time and Time Again” is the story of their past together. All this would be perfectly fine if Raymond were a real person instead of an over-the-top caricature of a tortured, obscenely wealthy hermit. Also, reincarnation itself is never examined. Why does only Raymond remember his past lives? What is the point of the same two people meeting again and again and again? Where is the Old Man with the explanations when you need him?

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