Great Reads for Great Readers

 

Remember Me, by Charity Norman.

 

 

           Emily Kirkland’s comfortable life in London as a children’s book illustrator is changed irrevocably when she receives an absurdly early morning phone call from her father’s next-door neighbour – in New Zealand.  And the next-door neighbour is widow Raewyn Parata who, with her son Ira, Emily’s childhood best friend, runs a farm on the block next to Felix Kirkland’s. 

            Early morning phone calls seldom presage good news, and this is no exception:  Emily’s Dad has Alzheimer’s disease, diagnosed when he recently crashed his car and his symptoms were found to be more than concussion.  Could Emily return to Aotearoa to care for him for a little while, and to decide with her twin siblings the best solution for future care of their dear Dad, once a respected family Doctor in Tawanui, the small East Coast town to which the family migrated from England, and now suddenly a confused old man who doesn’t remember anyone.

            Fair enough.  Emily will do her duty.  She’ll stay for three weeks, long enough to ‘arrange things’.  She had never felt close to her father anyway;  he was always very remote from his supposed Loved Ones, preferring to give his respect and attention to his patients to such an extent that when his last child left home, Emily’s Mum left, too.  Yes, Emily will do her bit, but she is already looking forward to leaving her unhappy beginnings in Tawanui (before she has even arrived!), for her memories also include a very rare Cold-Case:  the disappearance of Raewyn Parata’s brilliant daughter Leah, who went walking in the Ruahine Ranges on a scientific exploration – and never returned.  Emily was the last to see her alive.  She does NOT want to relive those memories!

            But her father changes her mind.  Swinging wildly in behaviour between not recognising her at all, and in his attempts at normalcy revealing horrifying, long-kept secrets, Emily knows she must stay and care for him until HE decides his fate, despite huge opposition from her siblings who are screeching for Power of Attorney so that they can sell his property and shunt him off to the local rest home.

            Decide his fate he does, and that is what makes Ms Norman’s story so clever:  she writes in clear, beautiful, everyday prose of ordinary people trying to make sense of a disease that we all greatly fear – the horror of forgetting who we are, our very selves – and weaves a stunning suspense plot into the mix as well.  And sibling rivalry has never been so baldly portrayed.  FIVE STARS.