Duck is 17. He will never be 18. Tomorrow is his birthday. It will never be tomorrow.
Time stopped at 1:17 p.m. on a beautiful Thursday afternoon in Washington, DC. Duck is the only person moving in a world where all other living beings have been frozen into statues in an endless diorama. Duck was already in limbo, having lost his mother to cancer and his father to mental illness. Now, faced with the unimaginable, he approaches his dilemma with the eye of an anthropologist and the heart of a teenager trying to do the right thing under the strangest of circumstances. Ultimately, he realizes that while he doesn’t understand the boundaries between friendship and love, that uncertain territory may be the key to restarting the world.
Awards
Finalist – 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards – Young New Adult
Bronze – 2016 Foreword Indies – Young Adult
Reviews
“Landweber’s hybrid novel Thursday 1:17 p.m. is a provocative, stop-motion parable for an accelerating world.” (Read the full review here.)
~Steven Felicelli, Necessary Fiction
“Thursday, 1:17 pm is an unconventional and intriguing novel that blends thoughtful insight with an irreverent, anything goes attitude reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk.” (Read the full review here.)
~Bradley A. Scott, Foreword Reviews
“Thursday 1:17 PM has style — the immediate pull of a neat premise and an engaging, dynamic protagonist. It’s a slim page-turner of a novel that, like Duck’s adventure itself, you’ll devour in a single, memorable moment.” (Read the full review here.)
~Joe Dell’Erba, Washington Independent Review of Books
“Landweber is able to combine joy and darkness, lightheartedness and heartbreak in the slim novel Thursday 1:17 p.m. This balance is a delicate one, and readers can see how even Duck himself attempts to walk such a line in his lonely trek through a frozen D.C. and beyond. With the wry humor of a teenager, the vivid, sensory scenes, and a complex emotional range, Landweber’s novel provides both humor and food for thought.” (Read the full review here.)
~Melanie J. Cordova, The Quarterly
4 star review. “Landweber’s first-person narrative puts readers squarely in the mind of his protagonist, who deals head on with life and death. Amidst anger and sadness, there’s also humor and hope. The author’s understanding of teens is spot-on, and the framing of the tale as a how-to survival guide fills in the necessary backstory. Get ready for a surprise reveal at the end.”
~Karen Sweeny-Justice, RT Book Reviews
“Though it is frozen, Duck’s world remains dynamic because he is in it, and he is acting upon it. And all the while, the mystery and anxiety remains: will the world stay frozen or will it move again?And perhaps that is the trick of the book: that Landweber has created a world that at first seems utterly without consequences, and builds it slowly to reveal connection and consequence in the most unexpected of places.” (Read the full review here.)
~Amelia White, jmww Journal
“It is a compelling read, a fun read, and a moving read. Breezy enough to keep the YA crowd engaged, and thoughtful enough to make it worthwhile. You really want to go get your hands on this one, readers, you’ll enjoy it.” (Read the full review here.)
~H.C. at The Irresponsible Reader
“Thursday 1:17 PM was sweet, and it was devastating. Its themes are thought-provoking and tough, yet the book manages not to be a downer. There is plenty of action throughout, even humor. This was a super fast read that I read straight through: I couldn’t put it down.”
~Monika at Lovely Bookshelf blog
“The writing in Thursday 1:17 pm is affable, even breezy at times, and yet easily slips into tender and even wistful moments, giving them weight without weighing them down. This is a very fast read, and yet one that satisfies both in context and style. I truly, utterly enjoyed this book, and it gave me a lot to ponder, but in a way that was invigorating rather than dismal, despite there being so much isolation in subject and action. I would heartily recommend it to literally every reader, young or old, of any genre or style.” (Read the full review here.)
~Sharon Browning, LitStack
“The book is written with a light, irreverent tone that is very catchy. It’s easy to like Duck, easy to ignore that he is ignoring his problems even as they are revealed through flashback scenes. I also enjoyed the asides—the guide to your frozen world sections—where Duck instructs readers on what to do if this ever happens to them. It reminded me a bit of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
~Audra Figgins, Shelf Stalker
“With the keen understanding of a young teenage mind, the wit to witness it, and the talent to play around with space and time and the laws of physics, Michael Landweber has written a coming-of-never-more-aging tale sure to entertain anyone with a soul and a brain.”
~Amber Sparks, author of The Unfinished World and Other Stories
“With Thursday, 1:17 p.m., Landweber has taken the trope of Last Man on Earth and turned it into something far more troubling and thought-provoking. Whatever your plans were for being completely alone on the planet, this book will force you to revise them.”
~Bryn Greenwood, author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, Last Will, and Lie Lay Lain
“How much mischief can one stressed-out teenage boy get into when everything else on Earth is trapped in a permanent game of freeze tag? Would you write a guidebook? Tip zoo animals? Tip people? Stop a suicide? Landweber’s magical extravaganza pays homage to Groundhog Day, The Graduate, Fight Club, and The Fermata, in an episodic see all, tell all, with an 80’s soundtrack. Duck, the reluctant virginal hero, learns way more than he wants to about friends, family, his crush, and reality, in his search for a way to reboot the world.”
~Richard Peabody, Editor, Gargoyle
“Ironically, it a world in which time has frozen, Duck has nothing but time on his hands, time to think about his past, time to miss his parents and his friends, and time to figure out what he would do differently if only the rest of the world would catch up with him again.” (Read the full review here.)
~Sam Sattler, Book Chase
“Remember that scene in Big Fish
~Katie at Words for Worms
“THURSDAY, 1:17 P.M. is a very satisfying summer read as well as a deep pool of subtext.” (Read the full review here.)
~Expendable Mudge
Some More Fun Stuff
Listen to my Politics and Prose event with Tara Laskowski here.
Check out my article on the Origins of Thursday 1:17 p.m. at JMWW.
Read the interview at Cultured Vultures.
Here’s a guest blog post about character development at Girl Who Reads.
Ever wondered what’s on my bookshelf – here’s a Shelfie at The Coil.
I wrote a (mostly fictional) memoir of events that happened at 1:17 p.m. for Clash Magazine.
Here’s one I wrote on genre confusion at Lovely Bookshelf.
What? You’ve never heard of Billy Beaver. Check out my piece at Rainbow of Books.
- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Coffeetown Press (May 1, 2016)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1603813578
- ISBN-13: 978-1-60381-357-0