Dear Friend,
You know that feeling when something you’ve always cared and wondered about ends up in a story. Yeah, that feeling? Well, it happened to me when I wrote this novel – my fascination with memory and how it defines us has shown up in a few of my novels, but in this one, it takes center stage. This time, my curiosity stole the show.
Life is made up of thousands of memories, if not millions. The smell of a favorite childhood landscape. The touch of a loved one’s hand. The sound of a lover’s whisper. The sight of a baby’s smile. The ache of loss and heartbreak.
Do such memories define us? They often seem to, and yet – what is a memory?
Amorphous connections inside the brain? Electrochemical signals? Synapses connecting with the patterns of things that have happened to us? These are – of course – questions that don’t have a fully satisfactory answer.
Well, sometimes "story" seems to be the only answer I can find. So please meet the Donohue family as they struggle with not only the memories they want to forget but also and more importantly, the ones they want to keep.
There are so many exciting things in this newsletter that I am pleased to share with you, including a new video we just made about the beautiful landscape where I tell my stories, plus a book club kit. Scroll on down!
Happy Reading,
All Love, 💜
—Patti Callahan Henry