Six titles about the shifting unreliability of memory

Jo Harkin studied literature at university. She daydreamed her way through various jobs in her twenties before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Berkshire, England, and Tell Me an Ending is her first novel.

At Lit Hub she tagged six books about the shifting unreliability of memory, including:

Anne Tyler, Noah’s Compass

Anne Tyler turns her exquisitely humane, closely observed writing to the story of Liam, a 60-year-old man who has just lost his teaching job and has moved to a cheaper apartment. On his first night there, the apartment is robbed; Liam suffers a blow to the head, and he can’t remember anything about the incident. These missing hours—the “not knowing how he’d comported himself”—disturb him deeply. His preoccupation with the lost memory leads him into a relationship with Eunice, a professional “rememberer.” Yet, though Liam thinks his problem is that “his true self had gone away from him and had a crucial experience without him and failed to come back afterward,” this reading will be challenged as he comes to a deeper understanding of himself and his life.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue