On the Curious Nature of the Mind or “What Alice Forgot”

Happy Book Review Tuesday! So I just finished the most amazing book – What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. Wow. What a story. It is beautifully written, touching, hysterical (in both laughing and crying senses of the word), clever, and full of carefully developed characters that you cannot help but identify with, and, quite simply, a wonderful story.

WARNING: There is some spoiler-age here… It’s all stuff that comes out fairly early in the opening chapters, but I still wanted to mention it in the spirit of full disclosure.

The book opens with Alice waking up after going unconscious as a result of a fall at the gym. As the story unfolds she describes her life, her pregnancy, her husband, her marriage – and it all sounds lovely. And then you quickly learn that it is all old news – ten years old, in point of fact. Alice has fallen and she literally cannot get up – to the present-day, that is. She has lost ten years of her life – she has no memory of her three children, her failing marriage, her pending fortieth birthday, her thin and fit body, her alienation and troubled relationship with her sister. She has misplaced a decade – and it was quite an eventful decade.

The majority of the book involves Alice’s attempts to reintegrate into her own life. Her ten-years-previous self is a shock both to her and to everyone around her – especially her children, whom she cannot remember at all. It is fascinating to read through Alice’s interactions and her disbelief at the person she had apparently become – a person very different from ten-years-previous Alice. As the story unfolds, we get glimpses of the events that changed Alice so dramatically. These sideways glances into her life are teasers, both to the reader and to Alice. The storytelling is so artful, the narrative so craftily constructed, that it is impossible not to believe in Alice. I dare any reader to not fall in love with the character.

The story is utterly believable from start to finish. As you might imagine, there is great trauma behind what has happened to Alice. It was not the kind of trauma I expected; when an author brings surprises like this it is always a special sort of a treat to me as a reader, even when the treat is bittersweet. The ending is ultimately very satisfying; the ends are tied together but not entirely neatly. The story, like life, is full of twists and turns – not all of which are good. But it is a jolly-good story nonetheless.

I have long been fascinated by the power of the mind to protect the body – and the spirit or soul or animus, whatever word you prefer to identify that innate sense of self that lies in all of us. Ms. Moriarty proves a deft hand at this topic, managing both the lighter and the weightier elements of Alice’s story with equal facility and grace. This would be a wonderful book group book – the discussion possibilities are nearly endless, the writing style makes for a quick read, and the story is so engaging that you won’t be able to put the book down until you know how it all turns out.

I can’t say enough good things about this one, honestly. It’s not chick-lit in any traditional, light-and-fluffy sense. Try it – I guarantee you will find it entertaining.