
A middle‑aged man named Coulter is cruising westward when the highway, the road signs, even his own car melt into a version of the past he thought he’d left behind. The familiar landscape flickers into a narrower, tar‑paved stretch lined with antique advertisements, and his sleek convertible abruptly becomes the battered Pontiac he drove two decades ago. Disoriented, he mutters at himself to “wake up,” while the world around him insists it’s already happened.
The novel follows Coulter’s uneasy attempt to reconcile the sudden, visceral return to a life he abandoned, probing how memory and longing can feel as disorienting as time itself. As he navigates this uncanny crossing of eras, listeners are drawn into a tightly wound mystery that balances suspense with a deeply human meditation on regret and the allure of a second chance. The story stays rooted in the first act’s unsettling shift, leaving the larger consequences to unfold later.
Language
en
Duration
~43 minutes (41K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2010-02-08
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1910–1996
Known for lively science fiction and mystery stories, this mid-century writer also helped shape the pulp magazines where many classic SF readers first found the genre. His work blends big ideas with the brisk pace of popular fiction.
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