Time becomes a character in these books. In Time's arrow by Martin Amis, every action is related in reverse, as in a movie being rewound. This is sustained through the entire novel. The actions of the main character, a Nazi doctor, are changed completely by this reversal. Wounding becomes healing.
Murder becomes resurrection.
As the character goes back in time he becomes innocent of his crimes. In Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia girls lost their accents , each short chapter moves forward in time, but the book begins in 1989 and ends in 1956. This allows for a different kind of character development - motivations and influences which shaped the characters are revealed as they grow younger. Stories written using this technique are dynamic, and change depending on what the reader chooses to read first. Jorge Luis Borges' Garden of forking paths is perhaps the most famous literary example of this type.