The Better Angels

More about the book

Aggie May, newly and unhappily retired from teaching, fears dementia when she begins to see visions from the past, like a 1950s-era Super Constellation at JFK airport and World War II soldiers at Grand Central Terminal. Then she gets a recruitment visit from Abe Irving of the American Association of Remarkable Persons ("the other AARP") who explains she has developed the ability to travel through time. Soon Aggie joins other "Remarkables" on a mission to nineteenth-century New York City in an effort to locate a missing photographic portrait of Abraham Lincoln created by the Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. While learning the rules and limits of time travel, Aggie faces the possibility that she may have both extraordinary power and extraordinary vulnerability. Aggie and Abe, two stubborn and independent people, must struggle to come to an understanding over how and when to take risks, including emotional risks.