Ken Grimwood's third novel, published in 1979. The dust jacket says, "He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on another book."

That book, Replay, published in 1987, would become a classic, never to be approached again by Grimwood in his subsequent career, which ended June 6, 2003 in Santa Barbara, when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 59.

I don't recommend Elise. It doesn't remotely possess the electricity, the magic of Replay, a book which has profoundly changed the lives of many who've read it.

If you don't believe me, go to amazon and read the reviews. I guarantee you'll buy it.

My best friend and I often bring up the issue of what we'd do if we could replay. It's all because of the unique, brain-rending take of Grimwood's book on the past and its mutability.

In Elise, you can see Grimwood beginning to think about the themes that would make Replay so compelling.

Elise is a young woman born in Versailles in 1683. Due to misreplication in her DNA, she has two DNA double helices in each cell instead of one. This fact, revealed by electron microscopy in 1973 (she's immortal because of her industrial-strength DNA), leads to all sorts of turmoil in the world of the scientist who discovers it.

Meanwhile, Elise outlives husband after husband, waiting patiently for science to progress enough to figure out what's different about her.

After it does, she is so distraught about the disasters that have befallen all who possess this knowledge that she goes off to sail around the world on her yacht and pass a few more decades until she again can pursue some sort of transfer of her DNA to others.

Then comes a bizarre, one-page epilogue which makes absolutely no sense: she awakens in a distant star-system, having been brought there from earth. Huh?