Didn't like it as much as his other books, but an interesting read nonetheless. Shows how he has grown as a writer. ( )

Time travel.
Mystery.
Survival of a child dealing with an abused mom and an alcoholic dad...
Didn't enjoy it much from the middle on. ( )

Gritty and hard-edged but very entertaining. I love time-travel novels and this was no exception.
( )

Mr. Was by Pete Hautman is: A mystery? A time-travel tale? Historical fiction? A survival story? Amazingly, this engrossing story of Jack Lund’s life after his first visit to Memory, Minnesota as an adolescent is all of these things and more. Caught between his abused mother and alcoholic father, Jack discovers an escape from the confusion of his life when he finds a hidden door in the run-down mansion his mother has inherited from his grandfather. When he steps through the portal, he finds himself in 1941, before the U.S. has entered World War II. That’s where he meets and falls in love with Andie, a vivacious green-eyed redhead, who encourages him to tell his strange tale of a life lived before being born. It’s also where he meets Scud, his friend and rival for Andie’s affections, who later attacks Jack in a jealous rage on the battlefield at Guadalcanal.

But what Jack wants most in 1993 when he steps into the past is to someday make it back to that fateful day in the future and prevent his father from killing his mother. Will he succeed?

This fascinating and well-crafted story will leave you reviewing all the events to see how all these lives fit together and questioning which life Jack really lived and where he is now. ( )

After his dying grandfather tries to strangle him, Jack Lund discovers a door that leads him fifty years into the past and involves him in events that determine his own future. (BCCLS) ( )