If The Train Arrives - Paperback

"Deeply imagined and heartfelt." Will Weaver, author of Sweet Land

How can we go back and do it all again?

A neurodivergent ticket agent struggling with his ended marriage, a willful teenager searching for truth about her past, and a teacher harboring a painful regret: each passes through the Wisconsin train station one Friday in 1970. Their encounters, though seemingly serendipitous, are far from accidental; yet none of them realizes how deeply their lives have been shaped by one another.

For years, the depot has offered Lincoln an escape from his troubled past. But now, with the trainline left in question-and in an era when disorders like his are often left undiagnosed-Lincoln must search for new ways to understand who he is.

Rose, his fierce and faithful mother, has orchestrated her son's life for years. In her close inner circle is the secretary who helped uncover devastating corruption at their psychology office. Now, the exposing of long-hidden secrets means facing life-changing choices-some seeped in regret.

Both somber and uplifting, unsettling and still, the healing of Lincoln and those he encounters builds in pace like the train at the heart of the story-and arrives at the destination of a gut-wrenching dilemma: How do we make peace with time?