In new sci-fi novel from Wilmington publisher, time travelers wind up in the 1930s

It turns out you don't need a modified DeLorean to go back in time. A 1933 Chevy coupe will do just fine.

That's the premise of "Waiting for Einstein," a fantasy novel by Robert J. Majeski just released by Wilmington-based Simply Francis Publishing.

The book is framed as a faux memoir. The author and his 14-year-old grandson Adam set out one day for their favorite hot dog stand in Grandpa's restored Chevrolet. Then, literally, they drive into the light at the end of a Connecticut tunnel. Suddenly, when they reach the other side, it's March 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt has just taken office, the nation is in the depths of the Great Depression and Prohibition has not yet been repealed.

How to get home? Well, time-traveling "Outlander" nurse Claire Beauchamp Fraser not being available, the one person in 1933 who might comprehend twists in the space-time continuum is Albert Einstein. But the author knows that Einstein won't settle in Princeton, N.J., until October 1933. He and Adam have to figure out how to survive until then.

More: Wilmington booksMurder haunts N.C. author's mystery 'In a Lonely Backwater,' which invokes UNCW

Luckily, the author strikes up an acquaintance with Broadway actor James Barton, who hires him as his driver. Few people remember Barton today, but Bing Crosby considered him one of his favorite entertainers. Majeski argues that he was as good a dancer as Fred Astaire, and in addition to a long run in the Broadway hit "Tobacco Road," he stayed busy in Hollywood. (Barton co-starred with Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift in "The Misfits.")

Through Barton, the author is able to meet a number of 1930s celebrities, including Babe Ruth, then at the end of his major league career.

Meanwhile, Adam, who's tall for his age, helps support them by working as a "newsie," hawking copies of The Brooklyn Eagle, Walt Whitman's old paper, on a street corner.

And the author meets his own father, who at this point is working for bootleggers.

More: Wilmington film'The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat' wraps filming in Wilmington. Here's what's next.

Ultimately, Majeski is less concerned with the science-fiction aspects of the story than with immersing in history, catching the sights, sounds and smells of a vanished age when gas was 10 cents a gallon, few people had heard of television and one could buy a comfortable house in the suburbs for $2,000.

The text could use a little trimming. Majeski is meticulous in describing where he drives, how far and when and where he turns. Sometimes the book reads a little like Mapquest directions.

At its best, however, "Waiting for Einstein" adds color to an era we mostly see in the black-and-white of old movies and Life magazine photos.

Book review

'WAITING FOR EINSTEIN'

By Robert J. Majeski

Wilmington: Simply Francis Publishing, $17.99 paperback

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New sci-fi novel by Robert J. Majeski is titled Waiting for Einstein