The Time in Between is a novel by Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 author David Bergen

David Bergen

David Bergen is a Canadian novelist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has published six novels and one collection of short stories since 1993...

. It deals with a man named Charles Boatman, who mysteriously returns to Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, where he had been a soldier earlier in his life, and his children, Ada and Jon, who also go to Vietnam to search for him.

Although generally called a war novel

War novel

A war novel is a novel in which the primary action takes place in a field of armed combat, or in a domestic setting where the characters are preoccupied with the preparations for, or recovery from, war...

, the author states that he "[doesn't] see The Time in Between as a war novel".

The Time in Between was the recipient of the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize

Scotiabank Giller Prize

The Scotiabank Giller Prize, or Giller Prize, is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries...

.