The writer and critic Peter Counter discusses his new memoir How to Restore a Timeline: On Violence and Memory (House of Anansi Press, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

How to Restore a Timeline: On Violence and Memory by Peter Counter (House of Anansi Press, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: How to Restore a Timeline

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

While on vacation with his family in Costa Rica in December 2006, Peter Counter witnessed a stranger shooting his father. He hauls his blood-drenched father to safety, and soon after Peter’s sense of time and memory is shattered. In his new book How to Restore a Timeline: On Violence and Memory, Mr. Counter, who joins me now, chronicles having to contend with post-traumatic stress disorder. We see in the consumption of media, old and new, nostalgic and current, just how tinged or immersed in violence everything is through Peter’s mind. He has to relive the trauma of his father’s shooting again and again, and he illustrates in an often magnificent way, the despair and resilience Peter experiences as he pieces together his life once more. The book is often amusing and clever, as well as insightful as Peter thinks critically about staples in popular culture, or nostalgic favourites that he revisits whether they’re video games, films, music, or television. I’ll ask Peter about some of the themes explored in the book like dreaming, revenge, and violence. Peter Counter is a culture critic who writes about television, video games, film, music, mental illness, horror, and technology. He is the author of Be Scared of Everything: Horror Essays, and his non-fiction has appeared in The Walrus, All Lit Up, Motherboard, Art of the Title, Electric Literature, and the anthology Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church. For more visit www.peterbcounter.com, and www.everythingisscary.com. This new book is published by House of Anansi Press. We spoke one week ago, with Peter joining me from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Peter Counter; Mr. Counter, good morning.

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