Remind Me Again What Happened by Joanna Luloff

Published by Algonquin Books on June 26, 2018

Claire Scott contracted Japanese encephalitis from a mosquito bite in India. She is hospitalized with a high fever in a Florida hospital before her panicked husband Charlie finds her. Charlie was in love with Claire once, but they have been separated for some time. When Claire comes out of her coma, her seizures and memory loss cause them to reunite, soon to be joined in Boston by their old friend Rachel. The novel explores the evolution and disintegration of their triangular relationship, and the discomfort that comes from their reunion.

Claire’s memories from age 17 to 34 are gone, and her ability to form new memories is impaired. She doesn’t recall living with Rachel and Charlie after the death of Rachel’s parents. Rachel is helping Claire sift through memories with old photographs and boxes that Claire packed away, but Claire spends most of her time keeping track of Charlie’s sighs and unspoken criticisms of her endless questions about her past. Charlie does not respond well to not being remembered. He wonders if Claire, who traveled the world as a journalist, was sleeping with Michael, her photographer, during their separation. Claire wonders whether Charlie was sleeping with his co-worker Sophie. Neither of them seem capable of recapturing the love that united them in marriage.

Remind Me Again What Happened is told from the perspectives of its three primary characters. Claire’s and Charlie’s chapters explain why each is irritated by the other. Claire feels suffocated by Charlie, who fears that she will suffer a seizure if she leaves the house and does not understand why she resists his desire to keep her safe. Claire feels Charlie blames her for her memory loss and that he resents the time he spends filling in the gaps, reminding her of events again and again because memories refuse to form. Those perceptions are accurate, as Charlie tells us that he is “still too twisted up with old anger and hurts” to treat Claire, who clearly feels no desire for him, as anything other than an obligation.

From the photographs and Claire’s stories, the reader learns about Claire’s childhood, which she remembers vividly. Recalling stories told by her parents shapes her current understanding of how she should be living her life. It is easy to feel sympathy for Claire, both because her memory loss has robbed her of an identity and because her seizures have robbed her of the opportunity to leave home long enough to gain new experiences and build a new identity. It is harder to sympathize with Charlie, because he is controlling and selfish (at least from Claire’s perspective), but the chapters that are told from Charlie’s point of view make it possible to understand that he also feels trapped in a situation that is beyond his control.

Rachel’s chapters focus on the relationship she once had with Charlie and the difficulty she has deciding whether to forgive Claire for an act that she views as a betrayal. She also recalls her anxiety when Claire and Charlie began to date, signaling the time when Charlie and Claire would move out and leave Rachel alone. She wonders if Charlie is correct in saying that Claire has not forgotten the past but is trying to rewrite it, to make it more palatable. Rachel finds herself caught in the middle, her loyalty to two friends divided, wondering if she will eventually choose sides in the growing divide between Charlie and Claire. Joanna Luloff builds sympathy for Rachel, as she does with the other characters, but like all people, Rachel sometimes lets undefined anger overcome her better nature. The reader likes Rachel in her better moments and is able to understand why there are times when her conduct is less than exemplary.

As is usually true in memory loss novels, the plot feels a bit contrived, but this relationship drama is character-driven. The plot is just a framework to reunite the characters after they have drifted apart. The reader wonders whether the characters will be able to reconcile their feelings, to gain insight into their own behaviors rather than blaming each other for making them act as they do. They all have secrets (even if Claire does not remember her secrets), and the reader wonders whether they will finally reveal their secrets to each other, or whether some secrets are better left concealed.

As is common in character-driven novels, the ending provides little closure because the lives of the characters will continue to evolve even after the story ends. That can be frustrating, but even if the ending of Remind Me Again What Happened isn’t entirely satisfying, it allows the reader to imagine any number of ways the story might continue by opening the doors to potential futures, just as all of us are engaged in a constant process of reinventing our own futures. Luloff scores points for reminding the reader of life’s uncertainty and of the struggle we should undertake to be good to each other, even if we do not ultimately succeed. She also scores points for telling the story in elegant, understated prose that brings the characters fully to life.

RECOMMENDED