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A review by liralen
I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia by Su Meck
3.0
In 2011, the Washington Post published an article about Meck. I read the article, fascinated, but I don't think I understood then just how gone her memory was or what a profound impact that would have.
Meck's memoir goes a long way toward explaining that, but I wonder how possible it really is to understand that -- after all, Meck, who in many senses became a new person as a consequence of her injury (you could get into a serious ton of philosophy here -- who are you without your memories?), only knows who she was pre-injury because of other people's memories.
I've taken so long to write this review in large part because I am still struggling to put what I want to say about it into words, and also in part because so much of my reaction has nothing to do with the writing (or other things that the author could control) but with the appalling lack of basic understanding that she faced from the people who should have been responsible for her post-injury, and I'm not sure how productive it is to focus on that in a review.
At times it feels as though Meck is still figuring that out -- what went right and wrong after her memory loss -- because for such a long time she had nothing to compare against, and nobody realised that. This is a book about memory loss and rebuilding a life with no road map, no baseline, and in that sense it's both sad and triumphant. But it's also ends up being about the basic failure of doctors and family to understand how to support someone with TBI, and on that end it's much, much sadder. How do you release from hospital, without outside support, a woman who not only doesn't have memories of childhood but also doesn't know she's supposed to have memories of childhood?
I wish we could also understand the woman Meck was before her injury -- though of course that's impossible, and if it were possible this would be a very different book.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.
Meck's memoir goes a long way toward explaining that, but I wonder how possible it really is to understand that -- after all, Meck, who in many senses became a new person as a consequence of her injury (you could get into a serious ton of philosophy here -- who are you without your memories?), only knows who she was pre-injury because of other people's memories.
I've taken so long to write this review in large part because I am still struggling to put what I want to say about it into words, and also in part because so much of my reaction has nothing to do with the writing (or other things that the author could control) but with the appalling lack of basic understanding that she faced from the people who should have been responsible for her post-injury, and I'm not sure how productive it is to focus on that in a review.
At times it feels as though Meck is still figuring that out -- what went right and wrong after her memory loss -- because for such a long time she had nothing to compare against, and nobody realised that. This is a book about memory loss and rebuilding a life with no road map, no baseline, and in that sense it's both sad and triumphant. But it's also ends up being about the basic failure of doctors and family to understand how to support someone with TBI, and on that end it's much, much sadder. How do you release from hospital, without outside support, a woman who not only doesn't have memories of childhood but also doesn't know she's supposed to have memories of childhood?
I wish we could also understand the woman Meck was before her injury -- though of course that's impossible, and if it were possible this would be a very different book.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.