Story of Forgetting - Softcover

''A novel about Alzheimer's that makes me desperate to know what Block will do next.''--Jodi Picoult, author of "My Sister's Keeper" "A fresh, beguiling novel . . . as true to the anguish of [its] questions as it is ablaze with love and vitality."--"New York Times" "The Story of Forgetting manages to feel big and small in perfect proportion, at once intimate and universal. Mr. Block has made something very beautiful out of something very ugly: a disease that steals people's lives from them . . . It's a book about love. "--"New York Observer" "Blisteringly good . . . The redemptive qualities of storytelling are gloriously displayed in this astonishing first novel."--"Financial Times, "UK "[An] astounding debut . . . compulsive and transporting."--"Publishers Weekly, "starred review "Magical and scientific . . . [Block] is a talent to celebrate and remember."--"USA Today" "Savor the moment because this is a debut worth remembering."--Alan Cheuse,

At seventy, Abel Haggard is a hermit, resigned to memories of the family he has lost, living in isolation on his family's farm amid the encroaching suburban sprawl of Dallas. Hundreds of miles to the south in suburban Austin, fifteen year old Seth Waller is devastated when his mother's increasingly eccentric behaviour is diagnosed as a rare, early-onset form of Alzheimer's. He begins an 'empirical investigation' to uncover the truth about her genetic history in order to understand the roots of this terrible disease. Though neither one knows of the other's existence, Seth and Abel share a unique tradition: as children, both were told stories of Isadora, a fantastical land free from the sorrows of memory. Spanning continents and generations, the story of forgetting is the tale of how history can become destiny; how the imagination can transform reality; and how loss, however devastating, can ultimately forge profound meaning. It is the story of the complexity, the pain, and the bliss of forgetting.