In our Meet the Author events, we’ve hosted several big names – Jodi Picoult, Joanna Trollope, Salley Vickers, Alexander McCall Smith, Alice Sebold and Louis de Bernieres to date – but it was always our intention to bring new talent to Winchester. Which is why we invited Stefan Merrill Block to be our guest, his only event outside London.
It would seem Stefan charmed our audience:Hello Guy
I just wanted to say how enjoyable the talk from Stefan was last night, he was a really engaging character and I am really looking forward to reading his book. Thanks again for organising some really great events. Looking forward to the next one.
Kind regards, Karen Marsh
Hello Guy
What a success last night was - and what a charming lad Stefan is! I think he won over a few hearts with that smile. I missed a trick - when he made that comment about reading groups being better than sex, I should have mentioned we've got a meeting this Thursday.... The other two from our group were too busy swooning to make the connection, as well!
Thanks, Vivienne Jarvis
And his publicist was very complimentary, too:
Dear Guy
I wanted to email you to say THANK YOU for such an amazing evening. It was absolutely perfect, and we all left for London absolutely buzzing - Stefan had a great time, and he said how it out did so many of his American events. It was wonderful to have such support for a debut author, and thank you to you and all the newbooks people and readers for making the event such a success. He also commented on how good the audience questions were (not to mention yours too!)
Thanks again- I’ve come back to Faber declaring that Guy Pringle does the best events, and we all look forward to working together more in the future!
All best wishes, Becky
Read on for 3 of our reviewers’ thoughts on his debut novel The Story of Forgetting, which tackles a thought provoking theme - Alzheimer's - that potentially affects all our lives.
See also Stefan's article on the Guardian website. There is also a Story of Forgetting animation on YouTube.
Reviews
TESS CROSBIE
The Story of Forgetting
by Stefan Merrill Block (Faber & Faber)
9780571237470 £14.99 hbk
May 2008
This book is split into four stories. There is the story of hunchback Abel who has an affair with his twin’s wife and that of Seth, a fifteen-year-old on a quest for information about early-onset Alzheimer’s which has struck down his mother and may one day claim him, too. There is the story of how this strain of Alzheimer’s came into being charting its progress to Seth’s mother and finally, there is the story that Seth’s family has told for generations of Isidora, a magical land of escape from memories. In the end, it is the tale of Isidora that binds these stories together.
I enjoyed the book. The stories come together with a …okay, not seamless quality but certainly with really small needle stitches. It is timely in its publication with early-onset Alzheimer’s so much in the literary news just now with Terry Pratchett’s diagnosis and with many reading groups having an older membership, Alzheimer’s is a subject many will have had to deal with in regard to their own parents.
Another theme that is explored in depth is that of isolation. Seth tries to isolate himself into his Nothingness while Abel retreats into a self-imposed exile from the rest of humanity until forced into the public glare, but none of the characters in the book are comfortable in the company of others until they learn to forget the past.
And then we come to the Isidora part of the novel. I think I understand what Block is trying to do – to show that forgetting is not necessarily the evil we think (without it, Seth’s mother would never resolve her own conflicts), but after a few Isidora passages, it began to grate on me. It was the one part of the book I didn’t like. If you’ve read “The Blind Assassin” you see how Atwood weaves her stories-within-stories so they become part of the whole whereas the Isidora story felt like a chunk put in afterwards to pad it out.
Do not let this put you off, however. It was still a good read and what more can you ask of a book? There is plenty for a reading group to discuss – loneliness and isolation, Alzheimer’s and its effects on the sufferer and their family, free will versus fate. This is Block’s first novel and I look forward to reading his next. I have a feeling we will be hearing more from this author.
Tess Crosbie, Bedfordshire
4/5 for personal read
4/5 for discussion groups
VIVIENNE JARVIS
What a beautiful book – sensitively written without being cloying. The novel consists of three threads which merge together at the end. The first is the story of Abel Haggard who lives with his brother Paul, his brother’s wife Mae, and their daughter Jamie. Paul develops early-onset Alzheimer’s, but his unpredictable behaviour is initially put down to the shock of seeing his best friend die in the army. The second thread concerns Seth Waller, whose mother is also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after years of apparently flighty behaviour, and Seth’s determination to conduct empirical research into the disease. The final thread is a fairy story about the land of Isidora, a parallel world where people are happy simply because they cannot remember what there is to be sad about.
The author is only 25 years old, and this is his first novel, so it is no surprise to find that he is writing about what he knows – he has a number of relatives who suffered from the disease. However, he writes about a huge subject in an intensely personal way. The aged Abel’s chapters ring as true as those of the more upbeat young Seth’s, and while both talk poignantly about their lives, neither voice is sentimental. There are many scientific references in Seth’s chapters, but they do not read as lecturing or complicated; they simply mirror the way in which Seth is approaching the problem he faces.
The author certainly has writing talent, so it will be interesting to see what subject he tackles next, and whether he can put as much of himself into it as he has into this book. Highly recommended.
Vivienne Jarvis, Andover
***** for individuals
***** for reading groups
FIONA ATLEY
This is a very moving, gentle story. It is two, almost three stories woven together. Abel is an elderly man living on his own, reflecting on his past. His twin brother and sister-in-law, who he had an affair with in their younger days are now dead and their daughter – who he believes to be his own daughter -has been missing for 21 years.
Hundreds of miles away lives Seth who is 15 years old and coping with his mother, Jamie, who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 39.
The story is beautifully written and very touching. Young Seth really raises out sympathies trying to cope with being a teenager without his mother. It is his devotion to her and his need to investigate the causes of her illness that bring the story together. He hacks into the computer system of the researcher who is working on familial early-onset Alzheimer’s and gets the names of the sufferers and then sets out to visit them. Having teenagers myself I could well imagine this would be the tactic they would use. I thought some of this part of the book was unnecessarily technical with lots of genetic codes. The explanation of how the mutation started was interesting and I wonder if it was based on fact.
Abel is a real character. The old ramshackle house he lives in was once a large working farm with many acres of land. Over the years he has sold the land to developers and is now surrounded by ‘MacMansions’ that he rides through on his trusty horse, Iona, much to the disgust of the new neighbours. He is very eccentric and almost entirely recluse. I loved Abel and wanted to cheer when he stood up for himself.
The third story is a fantasy about the make-believe land of Isidora which Abel, Jamie and Seth were all told of as children. To be honest I didn’t feel this thread gave any more to the story, though part of the tale is that in Isidora everything is forgotten, much like with Alzheimer’s.
This book is not like any other I have read, parts of Abel’s story reminded me of Mary Lawson and Seth seemed a very typical teenager. I did feel in parts the story wasn’t cohesive enough and seemed to go off at a tangent, but on the other hand I enjoyed the quite complex plot and although I guessed the end before it was revealed, I don’t think it was meant to be a surprise.
There would be plenty for reading groups to discuss, rural development, early Alzheimer’s, genetic research, family break-ups and much more..
Fiona Atley, Erith, Kent
Personal Read 4 stars
Group Read 4 stars
