The Bergen

The Time In Between is a moody novel about two Canadians on a trip to Vietnam. They’re searching for their father who is missing. The dad, Charles Boatman, fought in the Vietnam War and for 30 years has been hobbled by his guilty memories. The book moves back and forth between the dad’s time in Vietnam searching for something, it’s never clear exactly what would help him out of his torment, with the kids’ time in Vietnam searching for their father. Ada and Jon, both in their twenties, take up their own searches along the way, and their quests seem hopeless and dangerous, but unavoidable. The three Boatmans meander through Vietnam on their own and the country comes off as uncapturable and alluring, kind of a mirror of the aims of the characters. The scenes with the American expatriots remind me of books about Paris in the twenties. Don’t delay, read it today.