This is such a strange story. I wonder how she developed it? It is like a Stephen King story – based in reality, yet with some magic or other weirdness included.
We begin the story with a couple, Ory and Max, very much in love, holed up in a resort hotel. You are then exposed to what has happened to the world, and the female, – many people have lost their shadows, and, gradually, their memories. It is like Alzheimer only worse – they lose all memory of what is harmful, at least I think that Alzheimer patients do not forget to not touch hot stoves, or that going into water can drown you. These people of this story do forget all that and more.
Max has not lost much of her memory, but they know it is only a matter of time, and she will. They have created some ways to protect her from doing things that would be bad, like notes on the door to not open when someone knocks without a special code they have between them.
The story breaks into parts with other people’s story told. You know they will all arrive at the same place in the end. It is that exposition that creates the dystopian world that has been created. I think I missed some parts that would add to the story because the ending has so many icons of a religious nature. I might try to read others reviews to get a handle on what I missed.
I remember listening to a recording a fellow made during a drive from one place to another with his dad, who has Alzheimer. I heard what sounded to me like a dreamscape his dad was talking about, just some stuff that would only make sense if you were dreaming, yet, to him, it was real. In this story the dreamscape can become real – the first paragraph has a deer with some wings for ears or something like that, and you think, “Well that is weird!” It happens throughout the story – reality changes as the shadowless forget. Thus the magic.
It is odd, but I remember parts of this story, like I had read it before, yet it is not that old. I remember reading about the wall of water around New Orleans, and some other things sparked memories, too. I did not write a book review, so I can not refer to that. One reason I write book reviews is to help me remember books I have read already, but, alas, I have failed to write many that I have read or listened to – my bad!
write in David Brockert to replace Sen. Ron Johnson 