Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: Subway Love | Nora Raleigh Baskin | Review

This tour is hosted by Candlewick Press.

Subway Love
Author: Nora Raleigh Baskin
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Released: May 2014
Review Source: Blog Tour

If her parents had never divorced, Laura wouldn’t have to live in the shadow of Bruce, her mom’s unpredictable boyfriend. Her mom wouldn’t say things like "Be groovy," and Laura wouldn’t panic every weekend on the way to Dad’s Manhattan apartment. But when Laura spots a boy on a facing platform, lifting a camera to his face, looking right at her, Laura feels anything but afraid, and she can’t forget him. Jonas, meanwhile, thinks nonstop about the pretty hippie girl he glimpsed on the platform — trying to comprehend how she vanished, but mostly wondering whether he will see her again in a city of millions — and whether if he searches, he would have any chance of finding her. In a lyrical meditation on love, Nora Raleigh Baskin explores the soul’s ability to connect, and heal, outside the bounds of time and reason.

I had the pleasure of having a casual conversation with Nora Baskin regarding her book Subway Love. This was in and around the time of my trip to New York, the setting. When I read I always make connections, when I can. It’s just a habit. So when I began Subway Love, I was immediately brought back our discussions of subways. Subway rides and subway visual art. I remember very vividly the day our tour group decided to ride the subway, many for the very first time. So as I read, I could truly hear the quickly approaching subway. The sounds that doors made when opening. I remember getting on, looking out the window at the people still waiting for the next one. I remember looking around me wondering about the life story of the people around me. It was a subway filled with many silent stories.

Laura deals with the challenges of life every day and so does Jonas. Some different. Some very much alike. The discovery of one another, leads to a gentle relationship of love. The subway is the avenue for their love. The subway is the route escape from what life throws at them. However, without the subway, there is no relationship, no hideaway, no them. No subway love. Nora Baskin’s novel is an extremely swift read of love, time travel, and perseverance. She has woven together elements of genres to create a story that is so much more than a boy and girl meeting from different eras. It’s a story crafted with much attention to the lives of the main characters, their discovery of one another and the rocky ride along the way. The question is will the subway love last forever? Only time will tell.

To listen to Nora and Deitre's casual conversation be sure to visit A Leisure Moment, on the next stop of the tour for their podcast on 5/16/14.

About Nora Raleigh Baskin

Truth- I started writing seriously in 5th grade. I began with poetry. All I remember about my first poem, was that it had something to do with reincarnation. It was short but startlingly profound (so I thought). But what I remember most was my teacher’s reaction. She loved it. My life was changed. I had discovered the power of words.

By 6th grade I was writing short stories and keeping journals. I read constantly and my early writing was always influenced by what I was reading. At one point I became interested in Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. I wrote a short story, in first person, about a blind and deaf girl struggling to express her thoughts. By high school I had attempted my first short novel, weaving my life into the events of World War II. I was a Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany after my mother’s death and searching for my

missing father.

Writing was my way of articulating all the emotions and all the drama I found myself exploring during those years. Even my senior thesis in college was a jumble of feelings and experimental

writing based on my life experiences. It was, of course extremely terrible.

I think I was trying to make sense of all the confusion and unanswered questions. And I believed I could find some kind of truth if I put it down on paper. I was young, and I believed in

words- as my father would say. Now, I’m not so young (not as young) but I still believe in words.

However, it did take me a long time to realize that truth is only the way you remember it. It is all in the interpretation. I realized that my truth was mine to manipulate. And I began to write fiction. I was finally able to care more about the story than the facts. Take what you need and what you want and let go of everything else.

And the amazing thing was when I did just that , I was free. I was free from the burden of my own history. I was free as a writer to create. To write.