Wrong Place Wrong Time

The novel ends with a paragraph defining the term “hysterical strength.” “Hysterical strength” applies to moments when, under extraordinary emotional stress, a person is capable of profound exertions of strength—for instance, when women lift cars to rescue newborn babies.

Hysterical strength explains how Jen is suddenly pitched backward through time. The depth of concern for her son and the maternal love she fears she lacks triggers her experience. Maternal love produces a “huge force field of energy” (370). Jen feels the first inkling of that energy as she watches from the window and sees a stranger approach her son in the driveway. She knows that “[s]omething is wrong. Something is about to happen. Jen is sure of it without being able to explain it” (4).

Science fiction provides scientific reasoning to account for otherwise inexplicable events. McAllister invokes an analogy. As a mother finds the strength to lift a car to save an imperiled child, a mother also has the energy to alter, even temporarily, the forward movement of time.

The novel begins in an autumn drizzle and ends under a clear sky. As Jen awaits Todd’s return in the opening pages, she “stares out into the October mist” (3).