{"id":19558,"date":"2024-04-26T19:41:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T23:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19558"},"modified":"2024-04-26T19:41:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T23:41:29","slug":"bent-highway-by-craig-terlson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19558","title":{"rendered":"‘Bent Highway,’ by Craig Terlson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The rain moved into hail, peppering the windshield and body of the truck, reminding me of stones thrown against metal fences, of pellet guns fired into graineries [sic].<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Time travel<\/strong> is always an intriguing topic in fiction, and since we haven\u2019t figured out how to actually do it yet, we have infinite options as to how to imagine it. H. G. Wells created his time machine. I built tunnels between worlds in a couple of my novels. Craig Terlson, in his novel, Bent Highway<\/a><\/em>, imagines it as something like a road trip with Hunter S. Thompson, as filmed by some French New Wave director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We first meet our hero, whose name is only given as \u201cM.\u201d, as he\u2019s sitting in a diner, heating up a teaspoon preparatory cauterizing an arm wound with it \u2013 a wound he can\u2019t remember receiving. We gradually learn that he’s engaged in a cross-country road trip, but from time to time he loses consciousness \u2013 seeming to slip through cracks in the earth \u2013 and awakens somewhere else \u2013 in someone else\u2019s car, or in a bar, or in a brightly lit room. Sometimes he\u2019s with a mysterious tall man, and sometimes he\u2019s with a beautiful, white-skinned woman. Sometimes people attack him with cars or guns or knives. Gradually we \u2013 and he \u2013 realize that he’s been at this for some time, but keeps forgetting the incidents, which he doesn\u2019t experience in strict chronological order. He learns that he has a dangerous enemy, and that he needs to be in just the right place at the right time in order to erase and overwrite some event from his past, to save the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classic time travel conundrum of \u201cWhat will happen if I meet myself in the past?\u201d is handled offhandedly here \u2013 M. not only meets his past self, but an infinite number of his past selves, captured at each moment in his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Craig Terlson\u2019s characteristic vivid writing style is showcased once again in Bent Highway<\/em>. \u201cThe morning sun drilled a perfect hole in the cerulean sky,\u201d<\/em> is a good example. Unfortunately, the effect is marred from time to time by numerous typographical errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, the book is a cliff-hanger, and I don\u2019t believe the sequel has appeared yet. I hope it does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rain moved into hail, peppering the windshield and body of the truck, reminding me of stones thrown against metal fences, of pellet guns fired into graineries [sic]. Time travel is always an intriguing topic in fiction, and since we haven\u2019t figured out how to actually do it yet, we have infinite options as to … Continue reading ‘Bent Highway,’ by Craig Terlson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[5169,5098],"class_list":["post-19558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-bent-highway","tag-craig-terlson"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19559,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19558\/revisions\/19559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}