Title: The Story of Forgetting Author: Stefan Merrill Block
Date: 2008
Stefan Merrill Block's debut novel, The Story of Forgetting, ambitiously explores the effect familial Alzheimer's has on one Texan family, revealing both the burdens and freedoms that result from the memory-devouring disease. The novel is a conglomeration of fictional narrative, fable, scientific fact, and historical fiction.
When teenager Seth's mother is diagnosed with familial Alzheimer's, a form of the disease which will take her memory and her life much earlier than usual, he is determined to trace his family's roots in order to uncover all he can about his maternal relatives and the disease they carry. With little information about her past, Seth searches for other sufferers of the rare genetic malady--all of whom are related to each other, however distantly--in hopes of finding a close relative. The only other lead in his ancestral investigation is the stories his mother told of Isidora, a fictional land where the inhabitants have no memory. Armed with a list of names and the memory of his mother's stories, Seth searches Texas for anyone who may know about his family's past.
At the same time as Seth's journey unfolds, we are told Abel's story. An elderly man, Abel has little left but the memories of his life during occasionally happier and always less lonely times. Living in the only home he has known, reminders of the past are both a plague and a comfort. But his quiet life, which has gone unaltered for decades, is threatened when a new neighborhood of high-end homes is planned to be built on his land.
In between the chapters about Seth and Abel, Block tells the the fictitious, often humorous tale of the first carriers of the familial Alzheimer's gene--Seth's English ancestors--and how they found their way to America. Also interspersed throughout the novel are the fairy tale-like stories of Isidora and a bit of true scientific information about the disease. The intertwining of different stories is mostly successful, and Block's two main characters have believable, distinct voices. The chapters that focus on both the fictional and factual history of the disease occasionally feel superfluous, but even when it is not always clear how they connect to the larger story, the chapters are enjoyable to read.
Despite the grave subject of the novel, there are times when the story almost feels lighthearted, and perhaps because Block can write beautifully about everything from the Texas landscape to the bewildering effect Alzheimer's has on the mind, the novel is not as grim as I expected. Although Alzheimer's is a painful, frightening disease, and its shattering effect on everyone it influences is evident throughout the novel, Block also addresses the pain that comes with remembering the past too well. While the title of the novel is The Story of Forgetting, in the end, it does not feel as though the novel is about what people forget (or wish to forget) so much as it is about what remains a part of you despite a deteriorating mind or a troubled past.
