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Another Time
“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.
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.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 17, 2013
11 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Hullett
7 books8 followersAuthor/psychiatrist Joseph Hullett is an award-winning playwright whose work has been staged from New York to Los Angeles. His first play, The Pledge, won the prestigious Julie Harris Award. Subsequent works have earned (among others) the Ventana Play Award, Silver Medal in the Pinter Review Prize, and finalist selection for both the Arts and Letters Drama Prize and the Heideman Award. He is also author of three novels and two collections of short stories.
Hullett spent a free-range childhood in Detroit, left college to join the Marine Corps, and returned to work a year on the Detroit Free Press. Finishing college and medical school, he completed a surgical internship and a psychiatric residency at UCLA. Subsequently his day jobs have included teacher, researcher, lecturer, husband, father, therapist, and, sometimes, healer. He lives in southern California near Camp Pendleton ... not Dover Beach, but still within earshot of cannon fire.
Hullett spent a free-range childhood in Detroit, left college to join the Marine Corps, and returned to work a year on the Detroit Free Press. Finishing college and medical school, he completed a surgical internship and a psychiatric residency at UCLA. Subsequently his day jobs have included teacher, researcher, lecturer, husband, father, therapist, and, sometimes, healer. He lives in southern California near Camp Pendleton ... not Dover Beach, but still within earshot of cannon fire.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 19, 2020
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.”
A good idea in theory however the execution was lacking for me. A Vietnam vet going through his memories is good however it was very confusing for me half the time. It seemed disjointed. Each chapter was a different story however there was no context around it. I feel that the author was trying to create the vision of what an unstable mind ravaged by PTSD looks like but I just couldn’t follow it. But maybe that was the point. There is potential in the bones of the story, it’s a short book so there was room for more to fill in the missing blanks. This was an okay book but not for me. I think that it is one of those stories you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy, not just an anytime book.
“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.”
A good idea in theory however the execution was lacking for me. A Vietnam vet going through his memories is good however it was very confusing for me half the time. It seemed disjointed. Each chapter was a different story however there was no context around it. I feel that the author was trying to create the vision of what an unstable mind ravaged by PTSD looks like but I just couldn’t follow it. But maybe that was the point. There is potential in the bones of the story, it’s a short book so there was room for more to fill in the missing blanks. This was an okay book but not for me. I think that it is one of those stories you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy, not just an anytime book.
March 22, 2018
I was given this book in exchange for an honest review, and I am glad that I was. This is the first book I have read by this author, and it was certainly an unusual book. Overall, I did enjoy it. I would give it a 4.5 star rating but I can't seem to get that work. The book was well written and characters were developed well and engaging. One chapter I found kind of disturbing as it describes an awful thing soldiers may have done to an innocent native during war. I know it's fiction, but I also know from family members who are vets those kind of things did really go on and probably do still go on even today. This is a sad statement of the cruelty of humanity. Other than that part, however, I really enjoyed the book, and recommend as a good read. It has beautiful passages in it as well I think you will enjoy as I did, as where Nimak says" Memories like that can be a way to forget something else...I mean another time, another place – like right here, right now with you, or wherever, some jungle, a desert, a mountainside – you’d literally stake your life on it. And all it is, is someone’s story."
October 28, 2019
A different kind of book with a surprise!
This was a different kind of book that told short stories within a short story. It was not by any definition a typical post Vietnam war story. I. Have a post Korean war vet uncle who also became a bartender about a year or two after he got out of the service. He is also intelligent. I will tell him he missed his boat.
This was a different kind of book that told short stories within a short story. It was not by any definition a typical post Vietnam war story. I. Have a post Korean war vet uncle who also became a bartender about a year or two after he got out of the service. He is also intelligent. I will tell him he missed his boat.
October 15, 2018
I rarely do not finish a book. I just could not follow along with this book. I started reading it twice. The second time I thought maybe I just wasn't paying attention the first time. But no. I was lost just reading the prologue.
May 17, 2021
Couldn't really get into the writing style, gave it up at 34%
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February 27, 2018Placeholder
I won this book via Goodreads Giveaways.
I won this book via Goodreads Giveaways.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews