You Don't Make Wine Like the Greeks Did

In Short

This psychological fiction explores the unstable intersection of identity, memory, and desire. When a man claiming to be from the future enlists a psychiatrist to treat his wife’s "neurosis," the doctor finds himself entangled in a surreal game of truth and deception. Balancing cold logic against human longing, the narrative drifts through the streets of New York, questioning whether our personal histories are objective facts or carefully constructed fictions. It remains a sharp, melancholic meditation on how we invent the narratives necessary to survive our own lives.

The Story

The story opens in the office of Dr. Victor Quink, a psychiatrist located in the Empire State Building. He is visited by Donald Fairfield, a man who claims he and his wife, Mimi, have traveled back from a distant, sexless future. Donald insists that Mimi is suffering from a mental illness—an unwanted awakening of sexual desire—and demands that Quink "cure" her so they can return to their own time.

Quink is initially skeptical, viewing Donald as a fascinating, albeit delusional, patient. However, after meeting Mimi, the doctor finds himself inexplicably drawn to her. Mimi, who claims to have lost her memory upon arriving in this time, presents a different version of reality. She acts as a modern, flirtatious woman, quickly seducing the doctor and challenging his professional detachment. The narrative moves through a series of increasingly disorienting encounters, where the lines between patient, doctor, and lover blur. Quink, once a man of science, begins to abandon his clinical perspective in favor of a growing, romantic fixation on Mimi.

As the story progresses, the pressure from Donald to "fix" his wife intensifies. The tension culminates when Donald arrives at Mimi’s home with a gun, threatening to force her back to the future. In a frantic, climactic scene, Mimi suddenly claims that she invented the entire story of being a time-traveler to manipulate the situation, revealing that her "amnesia" was a fabrication intended to break away from Donald’s rigid, future-based worldview. Donald, confused and defeated by this sudden shift, flees into the anonymity of the New York crowd.

In the aftermath, Quink is left questioning the reality of the entire experience. Mimi assures him that Donald’s presence might have been an illusion, a mere catalyst for their meeting. The book concludes with the two of them together, enjoying a life that seems to have begun only once the "time-traveler" vanished. They eventually marry, and ten years later, Quink wins a Nobel Prize. The ending leaves the reader to ponder whether Donald ever existed as a sentient being or if he was merely a psychological construct—a "figment of imagination"—that the couple needed to discard to finally find one another.

How It Unfolds

The initial consultation Dr. Quink encounters Donald Fairfield, who presents his wife’s refusal to return to the future as a serious psychiatric disorder. Quink remains professionally guarded, attempting to diagnose the man while secretly humoring the bizarre narrative of time travel.

The dinner invitation Drawn by the promise of a unique case study, Quink accepts a dinner invitation at the Fairfields' home. He meets Mimi, whose charm and mysterious lack of past immediately disrupt his clinical objectivity and sense of professional boundaries.

The deepening affair Quink and Mimi engage in frequent, intimate meetings that move well beyond the scope of therapy. They consume martinis and discuss existence, while Mimi continues to feign a memory-loss condition that keeps the doctor tethered to her.

The desperate confrontation Donald reaches a breaking point, demanding that Mimi return to the future at gunpoint. The encounter forces Mimi to drop her facade, leading to a frantic verbal battle where the internal logic of their lives collapses under the weight of her claim that the "future" was a lie.

The final ambiguity After Donald flees, Quink and Mimi settle into a domestic life together, leaving the nature of their pasts and the validity of the future-travel story entirely unresolved. The narrative concludes with their shared success and the suggestion that their love was built upon the ruins of a story that may never have been true.

The People

Victor Quink is a psychiatrist who prides himself on his analytical, scientific mindset. He starts as a detached observer, but his desire for professional acclaim and later his romantic attraction to Mimi lead him to abandon his skepticism.

Donald Fairfield represents the rigid, repressed logic of a future that has supposedly outgrown human emotion. He is the catalyst for the story's conflict, desperate to maintain the rules of his timeline, yet he ultimately proves powerless when confronted with the irrationality of human love.

Mimi Fairfield is the most enigmatic figure. She acts as the pivot point between two realities, alternating between the role of a patient and a temptress. Her motivations are kept opaque; she uses the claim of amnesia and the promise of a "cure" to lead Quink into a relationship, ultimately revealing herself to be a master of narrative fabrication.

In Its Own Voice

"Every century has its advantages and its drawbacks," he said. "We, for instance, have bred out sexual desire. And, as for you people ..."

Donald explains the supposed evolutionary progress of his time to Dr. Quink during their first meeting.

"The furthest back that I can remember," Mimi said after they had settled themselves on the divan, "the absolutely first thing I can remember is relieving my bladder, if that makes any sense to you."

Mimi describes the exact moment her memory begins during her initial, disorienting arrival in the present.

"He'll be all right now. As long as he's made up his mind that he can leave me here, he'll trot off somewhere and dig up another neurosis, or psychosis, or whatever."

Mimi dismisses Donald’s existence after he flees, suggesting that he was perhaps only ever a fleeting psychological phenomenon.

What It's Really About

The central argument concerns the fragility of objective reality. The book posits that human beings do not live in a world of facts, but in a world of stories they construct to justify their own existence. Whether it is the psychiatrist’s belief in his clinical authority, the time-traveler’s claim of an evolved future, or the woman’s claim of amnesia, every character operates within a self-authored mythology. The book questions whether "truth" is even a relevant category in human relationships, suggesting instead that we are all just "tourists" in time, inventing pasts and futures to distract ourselves from the void of the present.

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy mid-century psychological puzzles and the surrealist potential of science fiction will find this a fascinating, if occasionally disorienting, experience. The prose is precise and carries the dry, observational wit of the era, though readers should be prepared for the period-specific attitudes toward psychiatry and gender roles, which are presented without modern irony. It feels like a fever dream set in a mid-century office, where the clinical formality of the psychiatric profession clashes violently with the irrational, messy nature of human connection. What stays with you is not the resolution of the time-travel mystery—which remains intentionally opaque—but the creeping sense that the characters are aware they are living in a fiction of their own making. It is a slim, strange book that rewards those who prefer questions over answers, leaving one to wonder whether the "reality" we inhabit is any more stable than the shifting stories told by the doctor and his patient.