“I read a short excerpt and was immediately hooked. . . . I’m no time traveler myself, but the novel has all the makings of a wonderful film, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re placing your hold on the DVD in a few years, too.”

“In Norman Lock’s imaginative and brilliant riff on Twain’s great American novel, Huck tells us his new stories and does not leave us until he is an old man in 2077, inviting us to recall the original novel and to review American history with a fresh eye. . . . This is a provocative and challenging book.”

“The voice of Huck Finn is so vivid and felt in this novel one loses the sense there’s an author behind it. . . . [The Boy in His Winter] is a testament to friendship, sharing, a slow life derailed and a look at America from a truly unique perspective. Huck is unforgettable and this book then even more so.”

“The Boy in His Winter is delightful, glorious. It is less a book one merely reads than itself a river one allows oneself to be borne along in, carried in currents and eddies, lured to false banks and sunken towns and so forth. The places Huck/Albert winds up—in the yacht industry, Googling the world’s rivers, and finally impersonating his nemesis—seem so perfect, yet each one serves as a burst of surprise. And, of course, the sentences—what is one to say about them except that Lock is one of our great miniaturists, to be read only a single time at one’s peril. I will recommend it to every reader I know.”

“In this surreal and otherworldly river journey through time, Norman Lock transports Huck Finn down the Mississippi and deep into America’s history—and future. Elegant and imaginative, The Boy in His Winter is a tale that’s as hypnotic as it is profound.”

“I read Norman Lock’s The Boy in His Winter with delight and amazement. Styled in the vernacular of a rapidly changing America, it stays true to the themes of Mark Twain’s original: class relations, race and slavery, childhood innocence, moral hypocrisy—and, of course, the stark beauty and unforgiving nature of America’s greatest river. I finished this absolutely elegant narrative feeling that Huck Finn has never been more alive.”

“A wonderful meditation on the struggle to dovetail one’s present self with the one’s past.”

“A sobering read and a wake-up call . . . which firmly places Lock as one of the most talented authors working today.”

“An eclectic hybrid of literary appropriation, Zelig-like historical narrative, time-travel tale and old-style picaresque.”

“Remarkable. . . . Lock writes some of the most deceptively beautiful sentences in contemporary fiction. Beneath their clarity are layers of cultural and literary references, profound questions about loyalty, race, the possibility of social progress, and the nature of truth. They merge with an iconic American character, tall tales intact, to create something entirely new—an American fable of ideas.”

“Lock plays profound tricks, with language—his is crystalline and underline-worthy—and with time, the perfect metaphor for which is the mighty Mississippi itself.”

“Lock’s work mines the stuff of dreams. . . . [In The Boy in His Winter] Huck Finn and Jim set forth down the Mississippi River and journey through a century and a half of American history, to alternatingly thrilling and horrific effect.”

“A true American novel—in many ways as moving as Mark Twain’s original.”

“Hypnotic. . . .A delightful and profound journey.”

“Lock has long been one of our country’s unsung treasures. . . . While Twain offered a panoramic skewering of his time, Lock reimagines the travels of Huck and Jim as a survey of the history and future of America. . . . Lock has made [Huck and Jim] not only fresh but new.”

“Norman Lock is a master of the unusual. Cast through his inimitable creative lens, [The Boy in His Winter] is much more than a unique concept. It’s a rich, textured story that’ll leave you unsteady on your feet, as any great water adventure should.”

“To call [The Boy in His Winter] a work of fiction is to tell only part of the story. This book is as much a treatise on memory and time and the nature of storytelling and our collective national conscience . . . much of it wildly funny and extremely intelligent.”

“Boldly reimagines Huck Finn. . . . Striking and original. . . . The premise may be an outlandish brain-twister that takes risks with a sacred American myth, but the vessel stays afloat by virtue of [Lock’s] wily ingenuity.”

“[Lock] is one of the most interesting writers out there. This time, he re-imagines Huck Finn’s journeys, transporting the iconic character deep into America’s past—and future.”

“Make[s] Huck and Jim so real you expect to get messages from them on your iPhone.”

“Brilliant . . . this novel shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights. . . . The Boy in His Winter is a glorious meditation on justice, truth, loyalty, story, and the alchemical effects of love, a reminder of our capacity to be changed by the continuously evolving world ‘when it strikes fire against the mind’s flint,’ and by profoundly moving novels like this.”