DAVID ADAMS on a novel about second chances…
James L Rubart
The Five Times I Met Myself
Thomas Nelson, Nashville, Tennessee, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1401686116
“The book is an interesting take on regrets, redemption, and it also calls for reflection on what it means to live for God, even when our lives aren’t where we want them to be.”
Ever wanted to go back in time and change events so that your life ends up in a different (read: better) place to where you are now?
That’s the premise of American novelist James L Rubart’s book, The Five Times I Met Myself.
The book tells the story of Brock Matthews, a middle-aged man who lives in Seattle and who seems to have it all – a good marriage and a loving son as well as a satisfying and successful career in inventing new coffee flavours for his family-owned coffee companies.
But cracks are starting to appear and when Brock repeatedly has the same dream in which his dead father asks him to fix his ruptured relationship with his brother Ron, he turns to his oldest friend Morgan for advice.
Morgan hands him a book on ‘lucid dreaming’ (a dream in which you’re aware you are dreaming) and techniques which you can use to control how your dreams unravel, to help him deal with the dream and Brock soon finds himself plunged into an effort to use his dreams to construct a better life for himself.
But things soon get out of control and Brock soon finds himself evaluating his life and then fighting desperately to save those things he realises cares about most. His Christian faith, which had become nominal, gets somewhat reactivated in his desperate straits.
The book is an interesting take on regrets, redemption, and it also calls for reflection on what it means to live for God, even when our lives aren’t where we want them to be.
The action is driven, as the title suggests, by the five times Matthews encounters his younger self in his dreams and while, as a result, we’re introduced to the key protagonist’s most intimate thoughts along the way, the other characters remain somewhat superficially drawn.
Briskly paced, it’s an easy, albeit thought-provoking, read and the set-up is enough of a hook here to keep you turning those pages to find out which of Brock’s many timelines end up panning out.
Follow this link to buy this book – The Five Times I Met Myself
