Tag: Joseph Hullett

Book Review – Another Time

Another Time by Joseph Hullett

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Realistic Fiction

“Are we captains of our souls? Absolutely. But masters of our fate is stretching it. The harbor we reach is sometimes a long haul from the course we plotted, because storms, and doldrums, and monsters intervene. Ask Odysseus.”

Marlow is an old Vietnam vet, the VA hospital where he was treated after the war has just been torn down and Marlow has travelled 4 hours to see it. Now he is drinking in a bar, telling the young bartender all his memories and stories he was told as a bartender himself before he makes the bus ride home.

“Turns out, that talking-ass, other-timer had my number. I’ve remembered his stories for thirty years now.”

“Me remembering thirty years later that old madman remembering people from his own way-back-when feels full-on weird. I see myself seeing him see them, and it’s like I’m looking in a mirror reflecting a mirror.”

Continue reading Book Review – Another Timesignature

Book 22: Michigan

Goodreads:  “I’m not an old-timer. I’m an other-timer,” declares a Vietnam-scarred vet who had found safe harbor after the war as a barkeep in a small northern Michigan town. Now plopped stool-side far from home – having traveled all day on a bus to witness a landmark moment – his outpouring of memories prompts a young bartender to complain, “What’s it to me? I wasn’t even born then.” Thirty years later, however, remembering the old vet recalling people from his past, the younger man sees himself see him see them, and realizes that all our way-back-when times are just a mirror reflecting a mirror, a fading column of reflected reflections … of stories. The old vet had been right when he claimed that, for a bartender, remembering is an occupational hazard. Was it also true that memories can be a way to forget.

I just started this book yesterday, made it 1/3 of the way and spent several hours saying out loud “WTF did I just read”.  I wasn’t sure if maybe I was just having an off day so I had my hubby read a page and let me know if I am just struggling with a case of the dumb but when he responded with a WTF of his own, I had my answer.  Thankfully this book is short or otherwise I am not so sure I would be able to get through it.

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