Breezy ... As the novel zips along—there are lively depictions of the Blitz, plenty of sex and a rom-com’s worth of flirtatious patter—Mr. Spufford’s reasons for withholding information about the science-fiction conceit become clearer.
Wizardly ... The novel fairly cackles with glee at its capacity to summon excitement from all corners of time and space ... Does what few time-travel fantasies do: It laughs about the pleasure that can be had once we grant ourselves the power to change history. At the same time, however, it asks questions, as all time-travel novels do, about who gets to tinker with time, and who lives at its mercy ... And yet, in the midst of this novel’s happy freedom, I still felt constraint ... Is Iris a woman, or is she a type? ... Iris may be a heroine who has figured out how to travel in time, but somehow here we all are, face to face again with history.
Radiant ... Spufford, a vivid stylist, wants the reader to feel and smell and hear what it was like to live in the city during wartime ... Most time-travel novels, because they mess with the sequence of cause and effect, have intricate, puzzlelike storylines that tend to shortchange their characters. Nonesuch, by contrast, suggests a new use for this by-now-familiar plot device—not simply as a thought experiment about the course of history, but as a more intimate crucible.
