Fly Twice Backward by David McCracken

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Stuff you might not guess about me:

When I was three, my mom got a call from a nearby barber shop saying I was down there entertaining the customers, naked, (instead of napping as Mom supposed).

At four my friends and I discovered the devil hole, a four-inch-wide hole we couldn’t see to the bottom of. We were confident if we reached in, he’d grab us. Eventually, though, we began teasing him by waving our foot over it, for longer and longer periods. I’m still here to tell the tale!

When I was five, I led a four-year-old friend across two keys away from Key West to play on a little beach I’d seen from the road. We were just getting started when our moms spotted us. Darn! That same year I found the gate around a power tower unlocked and was halfway up when a very alarmed man who’d left the gate open saw me and made me come down. So unreasonable! That same year I dropped out of kindergarten, which wasn’t compulsory yet. I was disappointed they weren’t teaching me to read like my big sister could. That was why I wanted to go to school! We were just playing duck duck goose goose, etc. A pretty married teacher who’d had to quit teaching because she was pregnant took over, to my joy. (This was 1945, and they has such rules back then.)

At six, a few weeks into first grade I told my parents I’d been promoted into second grade. They were bragging about it in church when the principal overheard and demurred. They had believed me since I could already read well. On the last day of school before Christmas break, I got the principal to give us the sixteen foot Christmas tree in the school lobby. (Just take a little off the top—er, bottom, please.)

When I was ten I did skip a grade, having been in a three-grade classroom and mastering the middle grade incidentally. Actually, they were going to skip me two grades, but my mom thought I wasn’t mature enough. Think?

And then there was the cow I thought I shot, at eleven....

You wake back in early adolescence, adult memories intact, including ones that could make you very wealthy now. Your birth family is here, alive again, but your later families are gone, perhaps forever. What has happened, what should you do about coming problems like violence, ignorance, pollution, and global warming? You realize one key connects most, the fundamentalist strains of all the major religions, disdaining science, equality, and social welfare. You see that there are some things you can change, some you can’t, and one you don’t dare to.

Fellow idealists help you spend your growing fortune well--such as an artistic Zoroastrian prince in the Iranian oil industry, a rising officer in the Soviet army working to find a way to destroy his corrupt government, a Bahai woman struggling against Islamic brutality, a Peruvian leader working for a liberal future, and a snake-handling Christian minister, grappling with doubts, sexuality, and destiny. They are supported by an ally who develops essential psychic powers. The group faces familiar-looking corrupt politicians, religious leaders, and corporate czars, but there is an ancient force in the background, promoting greed, violence, hate, and fear.

This exciting, emotional, thoughtful, humorous, and even romantic sci-fi novel weaves progressivism, music, movies, and literature into a struggle spanning the globe. Vivid characters propel the action back up through an alternative history toward an uncertain destination. Experience the unique story and its novel telling.

Read an Excerpt

When she gets home from school, Mom surprises me with a borrowed newspaper, El Mundo: “I thought you might want to catch up on Latin American news. You can read this OK, can’t you?”

Ah, a test. Thank goodness I’ve been brushing up scanning her upper-level texts. I take in her sly, wolfish grin, restrain one of my own, and say,”Oh, good here’s an article on the coming Venezuelan election, Mom. Have you read it?”

“Um, no, not yet.”

I proceed to summarize the article and mention that the junta had called the elections confident of solidifying their mandate. I go on to add they would lose—and turn power back over to the military. Who’d have thought that my Latin American studies focus would come in so handy, so long before I pursued it!

Mom slinks off to putter in the kitchen, but soon our doorbell rings. She seems to run to answer it.

“David, there’s a man here, Mr. Walker, I’d like you to talk with.” Looks like trouble.

“Oh, about what?” I ask.

“Well, just to get acquainted, for now,” Mom says. “Um, we’re thinking you might be able to use a special teacher.”

Walker is a serious-looking tall man of middle age, conservatively suited.

“Are you a math teacher? I’d love to learn advanced stuff, like algebra.”

“Oh, do you already know about it?”

“No, not past the name. Can you teach me algebra?”

Mom puts in, “Maybe history, David?”

“That’d be nice. I don’t know much, except some about the Second World War. I was amazed a friend of mine didn’t know who General Rommel was, though.”

“Mrs. McCracken, is there something in particular you have in mind?”

“Well, he says he came back from the future.”

“Mom, if I’d done that, I wouldn’t have been so surprised by this. You’re worrying me. You don’t want to do electroshock again, I know. You were really confused after the last time.”

“This is nonsense! I’ve never had electroshock.”

“Oh, Mom, are you back in that state? Don’t you remember? You denied it then, but . . . well, you know you wet your pants whenever you’d think about it. She was doing so well, Doctor . . ..”

About the Author:

David McCracken was born in Louisville, KY, in 1940. Raised mostly in Winchester, KY, he now lives in Northern Virginia, with his third and final wife. He has three children, two stepchildren, and six grandchildren.

After three years in the U.S. Navy following a lackluster academic start, he graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1963, in Diplomacy and International Commerce. He then worked as a Latin American country desk officer in the U.S. Department of Commerce until he returned to school to earn an M.A. in Elementary Education in 1970 from Murray State University, having always been intending to teach. Eventually realizing his children qualified for reduced-price lunches based on his own teaching salary, he studied computer programming at Northern Virginia Community College and worked as a programmer until shifting back into elementary teaching.

He began working on what became Fly Twice Backward in 1983 and finally finished it in 2019! At 79, David strongly doubts he'll be doing another novel of such scope and complexity, but is preparing to work on a children's science fiction novel with a progressive bent, being a devout progressive in politics and religion, as well as a lover of learning.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52960668
Website: https://flytwicebackward.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fly-Twice-Backward-102547317844345
Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z4KRLQZ/

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