The Book of Memory: A Novel

by Petina Gappah

Overview

In The Book of Memory, an albino woman named Memory is languishing in a maximum security prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she has been tried and convicted of murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened; that is, the events that led to the killing of her adoptive father, Lloyd Hendricks. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers?

Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between past and present, the 2009 Guardian First Book Award–winning writer Petina Gappah weaves a compelling tale of love, obsession, the relentlessness of fate, and the treachery of memory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250117922
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

PETINA GAPPAH's An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor Prize and the Los Angeles Times First Book Award, and won the 2009 Guardian First Book Award. Formerly an international trade lawyer in Geneva, she lives in Zimbabwe.

Editorial Reviews

Sly, smart, and intriguingly mutable.” —Elle

“A fiercely vivid novel . . . [a] beautiful, gliding dance of language.” —Los Angeles Times

“Crisply written, wryly humorous, The Book of Memory attests to [Gappah’s] astonishing talent.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Petina Gappah powerfully probes the tricksy nature of memory [and] brilliantly exposes the gulf between rich and poor . . . The novel is startlingly vivid . . . This is a moving novel about memory that unfolds into one about forgiveness, and a passionate paean to the powers of language.” —Anita Sethi, The Observer (London)

“For a novel saturated with death, The Book of Memory is most emphatically alive . . . [Petina Gappah’s] language dazzles . . . [Gappah is] a writer to take to the heart as well as the head.” —Catherine Taylor, Financial Times

“The Book of Memory flits back and forth in time and the plot twists and turns right to the end. It is no surprise that Petina Gappah is considered a rising literary star.” —Aline Reed, Sunday Express

“This is a powerful story of innocent lives destroyed by family secrets and sexual jealousy, prejudice and unacknowledged kinship across the ‘artificial divisions this country has erected to keep people apart.’ From its burden of guilt flow reflections on fate, religious superstition and the fallibility of memory, with allusions ranging from Thomas Hardy— including a fatefully unread letter—to the Greek furies. At its best, individual lives mesh with the country’s distorted fate.”—Maya Jaggi, The Guardian

“[Petina Gappah has a] warm, sane, engaging voice.” —Phil Baker, The Sunday Times (London)

“Petina Gappah’s writing is mercilessly sharp.” —Kate Saunders, The Times (London)

“Gappah crafts ample suspense . . . the narrative works as a cautionary tale of how superstition and prejudice can shape one’s destiny. The result is a beguiling mystery.” —Publishers Weekly

“Gappah’s vivid first novel . . . is an exploration into the unpredictable grip of memory and perception. . . . Gappah offers a nuanced, engaging journey as Memory rights the balance between truth and long-held assumptions.” —Booklist

“The scope here is ambitious. Gappah takes readers across racial and economic lines and sets Memory’s complex upbringing against 30 years of Zimbabwean history . . . Gappah’s elaborate tale is intricately plotted.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Gappah is a gifted, sensual writer who uses everything from county and western music to ‘the high whine of a million mosquitoes,’ to the taste of a stolen mango to draw the reader into her world.” —The Irish Times

From the Publisher

12/21/2015
Gappah’s first novel (after the story collection An Elegy for Easterly) chronicles the death row missives written to an international journalist by a prisoner named Memory in present-day Zimbabwe. Memory, an albino woman, begins by talking about life in incarceration, the litany of inmates at Chikurubi Prison (a real prison in Harare known for its poor conditions) and the guards in charge, who are led by a bully named Synodia. Gappah crafts ample suspense regarding Memory’s past and the circumstances of the incident that sent her to prison. She’s charged with the murder of her guardian, Lloyd Hendricks, a white man whom Memory suspects bought her from her parents when she was nine. Hints are dropped about how the arrival of a man named Zenzo ruined Memory’s life with Lloyd. Gappah also recounts Memory’s childhood under her protective father and mentally unstable mother, the latter of whom subjected her albino daughter to a myriad of dubious healers for their spiritual cures. Certain aspects of the incident at the center of the story remain far-fetched, though the narrative works as a cautionary tale of how superstition and prejudice can shape one’s destiny. The result is a beguiling mystery. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2016
In her first novel, which follows the successful story collection An Elegy for Easterly, Gappah returns to her native Zimbabwe. Memory, the smart and often surprisingly witty narrator, begins by describing the abominable conditions of Chikurubi Prison, where she waits on death row. She has been found guilty of murdering Lloyd Hendricks, a white man and her adopted father. Gappah moves readers back and forth in time to reveals the factors resulting in Memory's arrest and conviction. With the slow unraveling of events, the book is structured like a whodunit, but at its heart is the relationship of memory to truth. Memory's recollections are often disputable, calling into question her reliability as a storyteller and forcing readers to wonder about their own remembrance of things past. The narrator's outsider status as an albino, an adopted child, a woman, and a convict further complicates her perspective. But the novel is also strengthened by its investigation of forgiveness, and the author offers fresh insight into Zimbabwe's struggle for independence and Robert Mugabe's rise to power. VERDICT At times, it's not clear whether gaps in the story are owing to Memory's problematic recollections or to occasionally inconsistent narrative development. Overall, however, Gappah delivers her themes successfully, while stimulating all the senses with Memory's vivid descriptions of food, music, heat, colors, and scents. [See Prepub Alert, 8/3/15.]—Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Library Journal

2015-09-23
An albino woman in Zimbabwe recounts the unlikely story of how she ended up on death row, in a debut novel from Guardian First Book Award winner Gappah (An Elegy for Easterly: Stories, 2009). Two years after Memory is convicted of murder, she records her life story for an American journalist in hopes it will help win her an appeal. At the age of 9, she writes, her parents sold her to Lloyd Hendricks, a white university professor who lives in tony Umwinsidale, far from the crowded township of Memory's youth. At Lloyd's, Memory devours books, rides horses, and, after a dermatologist helps heal her blistered skin, becomes "just another girl." But almost two decades after they first meet, Lloyd ends up dead in his swimming pool and Memory is imprisoned, left to sort out how it all transpired. The scope here is ambitious. Gappah takes readers across racial and economic lines and sets Memory's complex upbringing against 30 years of Zimbabwean history. Her protagonist is equally complicated: erudite, unreliable, winningly mordant (she jokes that there's so much oil in the prison food "you almost fear that America will invade"). But Memory's a coy narrator, too, withholding information even after circumstances would indicate she'd reveal it. "Then Zenzo entered our lives, and everything wilted," ends a typical chapter, but who Zenzo is and how he relates to Memory's incarceration isn't explained until many pages later. This is especially confounding given the nature of her mission: if Memory's goal is to offer a sympathetic portrait to a journalist, why be deliberately mysterious? By novel's end, most questions are answered, but readers may feel frustrated at the Byzantine path they traveled to get there. Gappah's elaborate tale is intricately plotted, but her determination to build suspense ultimately saps the narrative of some much-needed momentum.

Kirkus Reviews