The Reminders

Description

An Amazon Best Book of June 2017: Joan Lennon Sully is a ten-year-old girl who has highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). Unlike someone with a photographic memory, she doesn’t remember facts and figures and numbers; instead, she can remember exactly how many times she’s met someone, what they were wearing each time, and what they said. For most people, memories are “like a fairy tale,” vague and changing over time—not so for Joan who, perhaps not surprisingly, is obsessed with being remembered (“like John Lennon or Winston Churchill”), and who thinks writing a song will accomplish that goal. When Gavin, an aging actor and musician, is invited by Joan’s family to stay at their house, Joan’s path to her dreams seems to have been laid out before her. Gavin has recently lost his partner Sydney, and Joan has memories of Sydney, which she can relate to Gavin in return for help writing a song. But nothing turns out exactly as expected in this charming novel, and Emmich’s subtle, skillful narrative reminds us that being remembered might be important, but what we are remembered for is more important. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review