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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Gin Crow by Jason Hill follows Willy Knight, a widowed father living with his daughter Christy in 2005 San Antonio. Willy has spent years studying the death of Helen Ruth after recognizing parallels between her disappearance from public memory and his own wife’s death after a hit-and-run. When an antique radio is delivered to his apartment, a neighbor claims it can send him back in time to the year before Helen’s death. Sure enough, Willy tests it and ends up in 1928, but soon starts being tracked when the law notices that Willy always seems to arrive before trouble and vanish afterward. Sustained by illegal gin and misnamed by witnesses, his presence hardens into legend and the moniker Gin Crow. Moving north toward Watertown, Willy tries to counter past history without sacrificing fatherhood in his present.
Jason Hill’s Gin Crow situates time travel inside American domestic life and inherited memory, following a man whose present cannot be separated from the past he enters. Hill makes the technology feel authentic with The Resonator, an antique radio with a prohibited setting that governs time travel access and limits the duration. Willy Knight is a fantastic protagonist who grows exponentially as the story progresses. We see him step between a white husband and a Black man being lured into harm, showing a judgment molded by foresight and a refusal to stay unseen. Helen Ruth really warms to Willy because he sees her as a whole person who exists outside her marriage. This is a well-written time travel story that's perfect for lovers of history who are up for a jaunt through eras, complete with illicit Boston dance halls and the satisfying ending I hoped for. Very highly recommended.
