Rewind

Rewind (1999), a science fiction novel for young adults by William Sleator, follows eleven-year-old Peter who comes back to life after dying in a freak accident involving a car. Guided by a mysterious voice that tells him he has the opportunity to fix the mistakes leading up to his death, he comes to meditate on what it means to focus on living an optimal life and avoiding accidental regrets. Ultimately, he learns that karma has real and immediate impacts on the events that take place in life, and resolves to repair his outcome by cultivating and repairing his personal relationships.

The novel begins in medias res at Peter’s funeral, at which the protagonist realizes he is attending the mourning of his own death. The funeral takes place in his hometown, where he lives in an unassuming middle-class family and goes to an affluent school. Peter frequently clashes with his father, a professional printer who is averse to his artistic tendencies. His mother, a pragmatist born on a farm, dislikes Peter’s flippant behavior, perceiving him as privileged and unmotivated. At the funeral, Peter witnesses the suffering of his parents, other family members, and friends, realizing how much they care for him. Thinking back, he remembers that he was hit by his neighbor’s car. He witnesses his parents tell Mrs. Hazelton, the woman who accidentally killed him, that he was an impulsive boy and his death was probably unavoidable. Then, a voice emerges from nowhere. It tells him that he can pick any moment before the death to go back to, to try to stop the tragedy.

Peter eagerly complies, going back in time and stuffing the gas tank of the neighbor’s car with sugar to prevent it from starting and causing a fatality. This time, he is merely killed by a different car a few moments later. The voice reappears and tells him that he has another chance to save himself. Peter returns to the past again, this time to the moment of a fight he had with his parents before storming outside to his death. He is kind and compliant to his parents, preventing both of the previous deadly outcomes. However, then he is killed by a truck in a third freak accident. The voice returns and grants him a third chance to save himself.



Though Peter feels frustrated by the apparent inevitability of his death, he decides to tweak his strategy one last time by going further back in time to the month before, when tensions started flaring up with his parents. This time, he lives with the intention to be kind to his parents, defusing any tension that builds up. His effort eventually pays off and the feud settles down from its critical condition. On the day when the previous deaths took place, Peter performs for his parents the same puppet show that he performed in the past timelines. This time, they love it, signaling a profound attitudinal change in their relationship with him. He survives the day, taking it as a signal from the universe that he has successfully altered his fate.

A novel about the karmic connection between empathy and kindness and life outcome, Rewind suggests that though the form in which one’s suffering takes place is avoidable, the fact of such suffering occurring is inevitable. Peter’s ultimate survival is contingent on his response not to the material facts or logic underlying the event of his demise, but rather his holistic response to his emotional and social well-being; namely, the development of empathy for his parents.