June 2012 Meeting

At the end of June, we met to discuss Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson.  Of course, we had to have dinner first, so we dined at the Queen Vic Pub in honor of the London setting. This meeting also happens to coincide with Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee -- Hail to the Queen! The Pub is a cute little place that serves British and Indian food with a lot of the menu involving crossover twists on the two types of cooking. For example, there's the Indian Kebob Burger -- ground lamb, goat cheese, and riata on naan bread -- excellent. Marilyn supplied plenty of goodies, like coconut pie, sponge cake with fruit, and merangue-like cookies, which kept us busy for awhile.

This seemed somehow
appropriate!

As for the book, almost all of us liked it, except Marilyn, who found it too repetitive. We all agreed that she was absolutely right. There was definitely a lot of rehashing of the same events over and over as the main character read through her journal every day. But we all thought the plot twist was very surprising, not at all what anyone expected, which is always a good thing. The only other weakness was that some elements of the mystery about Christine's life were glossed over a little too quickly, making them seem somewhat contrived. Why did her friend, Claire, and her son, Adam, give up so easily on trying to find her after she disappeared from the nursing facility? Why did her attacker (I don't want to reveal any major spoilers) wait years before seeking her out (you'll understand when all is revealed)? Was her doctor really trying to help her recover her memory or was he just looking for fame? A doctor who not only makes house calls, but picks his patient up and drives her around town?! Despite its shortcomings, this book was a captivating read, with lots of hints and foreshadowing that kept you reading way into the night to find out who the bad guy was.

The one thing we all wondered about was whether Christine's condition -- having no memories after waking up every morning -- was a real medical condition.  According to the author's blog, it does actually exist, although he added a special twist. It's kind of a combination of retrograde and  anterograde amnesia, in which a person is unable to retain old memories or create new ones. The cause is often a traumatic brain injury. Watson's twist is that Christine can remember things for a day but wakes up each morning as a tabula rasa. Interestingly, the author did discover a news story about a woman who had exactly the same symptoms as his character. He talks about how terrible it must be to lose one's memory, a fear that all of our group members shared, as the specter of old age and Alzheimer's disease, with its inevitable memory loss, looms closer for us baby boomers.

The good news is that all of us in the group still seem to be in possession of all of our faculties, although everyone seems to lose their car keys once in a while! But for now, we are able continue to read and discuss good books with interesting story-lines, like this one.

Afterword:

Not only has this first book by S. J. Watson become an international best seller, and been translated into numerous languages...

Before I Go to Sleep is being made into a major motion picture, produced by Ridley Scott of Gladiator fame and starring... wait for it... hold your breath... Nicole Kidman!

Tough break for a first time author!