The Immortal Man: Reviewing John Nolte’s *Borrowed Time*

Suppose you were immortal. Would you be in heaven? Or hell?

What if you were literally immortal, not knowing how, or why?

What if you had no idea of your actual age or birthday, because you were born before anybody kept records, and you didn’t age.

You could be killed or die in an accident or even end your own life, but you’d always return … to the same place, under a Joshua Tree in what is now the American Southwest, a desert, your body reconstituted as it was before.

That’s Joshua Mason’s existence, in this phenomenal novel noir.

Joshua Mason isn’t his original name, of course. It’s a name he made up, or maybe found somewhere. He has no idea of his original name, if he even had one.

He’s thousands of years old, though he looks — always — like a late fortysomething.

He’s the central character in Borrowed Time, out last year from John Nolte, a name you’ll recognize if you read Breitbart.com where he writes a regular column.

Borrowed Time is not a partisan screed. Politics plays a role in the backdrop, in the form of acute observations from someone who’s been around the block a few times, and then some. This book is a thoughtful and often poignant meditation on the human condition. To carry the storyline forward (occasionally backward), Nolte brings Mason into contact with a variety of characters, many of them broken by life. They range from decent folks who mean well to cutthroat opportunists to amoral, bloodthirsty killers.

Nolte’s narrative also ranges across multiple ethnicities, for anyone who cares about that sort of thing.

What would you say about a man who doesn’t get older?

Well, in any stable community, this odd fact about him might someday attract attention. So, such a man can’t stay in one place for long.

He also risks heartbreaking loss should he fall in love. He’s cursed to watch any partner grow old and die….

Joshua Mason let it happen, and this forms one of the central threads of the book: his relationship with Doreen Medina, whose husband had left her, and their daughter…