Time After Time: A Novel in Verse

By Xlibris US

What is time? That haunting question is pondered by every human being who lives long enough to see its effects at work around them. In this verse novel, the concept of time is explored across many decades in the life of one unfortunate but extraordinary woman. The tale unfolds in a coalmining community in Pennsylvania, a cruelly decisive context for her and everyone involved with her. Time After Time is a powerful record of the most intimate yet mysterious force any of us ever encounters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499030402

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The sonnets quoted in the Afterword are taken from A Casebook on Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Crowell, 1966), Gerald Willen and Victor B. Reed, eds.

PHOTO CREDITS

Front cover and interior photos (except p. 73) by permission from the archive of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mining and Reclamation. I am most grateful to the Bureau for the use of these historic photos of early 20th century coal mining.

Great Andromeda Nebula, p. 73 - public domain photo from A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star-clusters and Nebulae, Volume II, The Universal Press, London, 1899

Back cover author photo by Judith Lauter.

Copyright © 2014 by Ken Lauter.

ISBN:                  Softcover                        978-1-4990-3039-6

                            eBook                             978-1-4990-3040-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/26/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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DEDICATION

once more for Judy

whose critical insight

and unwavering belief in this book

helped rescue it from oblivion

and gave it a better soul

*   *   *

and for Jerry Williams

phenomenologist, sociologist, poet, friend

whose early life in mining

shaped both his imagination and his ethics

Also by Ken Lauter

from Xlibris

New Mexico Notebook –

Late Summer in the Mountains - 2014

Postcards from Paradise –

A Tucson Spring - 2013

Vermeer in Words - 2013

First Kingdoms –

Poems from a Vanishing Landscape - 2012

The Structure of the Body - 2012

Searching for Mr. Stevens - 2011

Grand Canyon Days - 2011

Songs from Walnut Canyon - 2010

The Ghosts – Notes from a Field Study - 2009

from BkMk Press, University of Missouri at Kansas City

Before the Light -1987

The Other Side -1973

*   *   *

Desperate Quest – A Poet Looks at Sustainability

in Toward a More Livable World: Social Dimensions of Sustainability

Dr. Jerry Williams and Dr. William Forbes, eds.

Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2012

Knowing Their Names

a one act play for Steven Berkoff

IanFisher.com, 1999

"Laughter, Gender and Death in Berkoff’s Coriolanus"

a critical essay

IanFisher.com, 1999

CONTENTS

Preface

Prologue

Sarah’s Scrapbook

Sarah’s Revelation - I

Chapter One

Sarah’s Scrapbook

Early Morning

November 1939

December 1939

Chapter Two

Sarah’s Scrapbook

April l916

June 1917

March 1934

The Kentucky Man’s Lineage

December 8, 1941

Early

Reviews for Time After Time

[hamburgerclan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In 1893, H.G. Wells builds a time machine. Jack the Ripper steals it and travels to 1979 San Francisco. Wells then feels obliged to follow and bring the escaped killer to justice. It's a dumb concept, but Mr. Alexander makes an entertaining tale of it. He paints a believable picture of a temporal cross-cultural experience as Wells (and to a lesser extent, Jack) attempts to traverse 1979 San Francisco, fraught with 1893 Victorian assumptions and biases.--J.

[john257hopper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel accompanies the entertaining film of the same name where H G Wells follows Jack the Ripper forward in time to 1979. The book follows the same course, but has the added bonus of both H G's reflections on and marvelling at the technological advances he sees and his disappointments and disillusionment with the crime and injustices he experiences, which tell against the Utopian ideals he had anticipated for future society. All this gives the book added depth as well as many funny and some horrific and disturbing moments. Well worth tracking down.

[readerray · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book and a Great Movie!!