The author of this book is an impostor. Stefan Merrill Block maintains the fiction that he was born in 1982. This makes him 26 at most, when obviously such a mesmeric debut book has to be the product of decades of experience and wisdom.
No, clearly, he is of the same vintage as Abel Haggard, the sexagenarian hunchback whose narrative had me gripped from the second sentence: "In the months that followed the great tragedy of my life...", as he poignantly looks back on what he has lost.
The past casts a long shadow in this book which contemplates the multi-faceted subject of memory and forgetting. It takes us to American fly-over country; that featureless landscape where nothing - and everything - happens. You know when an author describes "the endless plane of clay and wheat meeting the sky" that his interest really lies in examining the landscape of the human heart. Its themes are universal. What happens when a family is blighted with Alzheimer's? What is the mix of experience and DNA that makes us who we are? To what extent are we uniquely free individuals or the victims of a pitiless genetic destiny?
The Story of Forgetting is a page-turner which amply rewards a second look. Having raced through it first time around, almost at a single sitting, with a more measured reading I'm discovering new layers, rich with meaning and allusion.
There's the contrast between Abel's passionate chapter headings, "Once, I fell in love with everything", with Seth's empirical investigation, ‘Hypothesis', ‘Background research', as he tries to shape his experience and understand his troubled family and its history; the response of Seth's father - obsessively viewing The History Channel - as his mother struggles even to remember her own name; Seth's ‘Catcher in the Rye' teenage angst and the Faulkner-esque southern gothic of Abel defending his dwindling, dilapidated homestead against the sprawl of endless cloned, shining mansions.
Interwoven with the all-too-real narratives of Abel and Seth are the myths of Isidora, where memory doesn't matter, anything is possible and you always have whatever it is you need. Don't be tempted to skip the myths. Not just a counterpoint to the main plotlines, increasingly they serve to unite the two protagonists in a suspenseful conclusion.
Ironically for a book about memory loss, The Story of Forgetting will stay with me for a long time.
In issue 45 of newbooks, Elsbeth Linder talks about ‘bull's eye debuts' but warns, "A career in writing requires the dash of a sprinter combined with the endurance of a marathon runner". Stefan Merrill Block has certainly scored a bull's eye, which has been a privilege to read and review. I look forward to seeing that he also has the stamina to go the distance.