THE INSISTENCE OF MEMORY

Quilty’s genre-bending SF novel follows a group of friends as they discover a machine that lets them live inside a memory.

Joanne has recently lost her husband, Jeff, and feels nothing but numb. The only thing keeping her going is caring for her twin 8-year-old daughters, Sarah and Ruthie: “They are identical, in appearance if not in temperament, but they have always been unique in Joanne’s eyes. Until lately. Now she has begun to see them as one unit. One responsibility to be fed, and clothed, and tucked into bed.” Her best friend and neighbor, Eleanor, comes over every day to check on her, but there’s nothing she can do to lift Joanne’s spirits—until Eleanor’s husband, Andy, mentions that Jeff kept an invention he built (with Andy’s help) in the basement that will “change the world.” The machine, once they’re hooked up to it, will allow them to view three of Jeff’s memories as if they were experiencing them and hearing his thoughts. Eleanor has her doubts about the machine as old fears and recriminations come to light, fearing that the device, and the memories it contains, might tear them all apart. The narrative gives readers an opportunity to contemplate their own sense of memory and to decide if some memories are better forgotten. There are some quick shifts in point of view between characters that might be jarring for some readers, and some major moments happen off-page, such as when scientist David Tyler tries to use the machine for the first time. But readers who persevere will be drawn in by the author’s steady tone and the compelling mystery of the machine and the memories it contains.

A solid speculative fiction story with enough mystery elements to keep readers guessing.