It's about time...

Time travel is everywhere. I recently read Slam by Nick Hornby. This is not a sci-fi genre novel at all, but a novel about a Tony Hawk-obsessed teenager who has to grow up fast when he and his girlfriend become teenage pregnancy statistics - Hornby's very readable and funny adolescent writing style is for once used to bring to life an actual, likeable teenager rather than a regressed adult. However the book uses a flash-forward plot device - a magic Tony Hawk poster that flashes the protagonist forward along his own time to experience events in his future. Hornby and the protagonist are clearly aware that these trips might be real or imagined, and as Hornby allows the linear plot to catch up with the flash-forwards this question is answered. And what's the protagonist's name? Oh yes, Sam.