First published 2014
Martin Radey grips the chrome rail of a Toronto streetcar on Christmas Day 1950. He turns to a stranger beside him and gasps his final words: "I can't breathe." Death comes for him as it has for billions before. But dying brings no ending. Instead, Martin begins an unexpected journey that spans seventy years, from 1880 to 1950. Time moves around him while memory travels forward, untouched by temporal boundaries. Memory shapes everything he encounters: earth, sky, and human hearts. Through shape-changing that draws from Eastern and aboriginal spiritual traditions, Martin experiences life as both observer and participant. Green presents this fictional biography as a prequel to his celebrated novel Shadow of Ashland. The story reveals how one man's consciousness persists beyond physical death, witnessing decades of change while discovering that memory exists outside time itself. Martin learns that the everyday world contains its own magic, magic that most people fail to recognize while they live.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, fantasy, biographical-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: observer-participant, shape-shifting
Setting: Toronto
Period: 1880, 1950
ebook · Open Road Media Science & Fantasy