Who is Tom/John Barren

Tom is the novel’s protagonist, narrator, and (within Mastai’s fiction) the author of this “memoir.” He chronicles his experience with time-travel and altering reality because of mistakes he made in the past. One pervasive character trait of Tom’s is a feeling of isolation. In his old world, he felt lonely because his father was aloof, his mother was dead, and the few friends he had viewed him as a failure. Tom felt isolated from the rest of society as well because he had no real motivation, and he was only interested in the ubiquitous complex technology when it failed spectacularly, while others were content to appreciate the way these advancements improved their lives. When he arrives in our version of reality, Tom initially feels isolated because he is in a entirely new world in which he has no familiarity with. However, he soon realizes that despite a much less advanced world, here he has a better relationship with his family and begins a romantic relationship with Penny.