The Book of Memory: A Novel

by Petina Gappah

Overview

An albino Zimbabwe woman recounts how she came to be on death row in this "sly, smart" debut novel (Elle).

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

The story that you have asked me to tell you does not begin with the pitiful ugliness of Lloyd's death. It begins on a long-ago day in August when the sun seared my blistered face and I was nine years old and my father and mother sold me to a strange man.

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 Llyod 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.

"Crisply written, wryly humorous, The Book of Memory attests to [Gappah's] astonishing talent." ―Minneapolis Star Tribune

"For a novel saturated with death, The Book of Memory is most emphatically alive. . . . [Petina Gappah's] language dazzles. . . . [She is] a writer to take to the heart as well as the head." ―Financial Times

"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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374714888
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	03/14/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	289
File size:	789 KB

About the Author

PETINA GAPPAH's An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was short-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and won the 2009 Guardian First Book Award. She is currently an international trade lawyer in Geneva, and 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

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