While Bennie and his nine year old daughter enjoy their weekly date at the bookstore, a chemical spill at the town’s pharmaceutical plant releases deletrium into the atmosphere. One by one, the residents of Clarence will experience the effects of the drug as it unlocks their memories and long forgotten and/or repressed events will resurface.
For some of the residents the effects of the drug are traumatic. Take, Calvin a war veteran living in the Sunny Shadows retirement home who is one of the first residents to experience the side effects of the drug. When we first meet him, he is a kind and friendly gentleman but after his exposure to deletrium he's left in a catatonic state.
For Bennie, the effect of the drug will have different consequences. He can now recall exactly the car accident that killed his wife. He remembers how it happened and how he could have avoided it, but most importantly he can recall the details of his wife and happy marriage almost to the point where he’d rather live with those memories than in the present.
As the other characters reveal some of their memories and their reactions the author ultimately makes the reader turn inward. What do we remember or choose to forget in our lives and why? And, if we had the opportunity of remembering would we? Or is the past in the past?
I thought this book presented an intriguing idea and proved to be quite a promising debut. I’ll definitely look forward to reading another novel by this author.
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Added 11/06