I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia

Memoirs are usually written by people who have interesting stories to tell of their own life experiences. The root of the word means “memory,” and most memoirists recount many of their harrowing or inspiring or fascinating memories. Su Meck’s memoir is unusual, not because it’s not absolutely fascinating or that it’s not about her own life, but because she doesn’t actually remember many of the stories she relates. The nearly-fifty-year-old suffered a brain injury when she was only twenty-two, and it led to the loss of all of her memories from before that time, as well as an often spotty memory afterward.

In I Forgot to Remember, then, she works much as a biographer, interviewing those closest to her to be able to piece together her own life. The result is an incredible story of a life that was most definitely unusual, of a woman having to learn right alongside her toddler and baby after a devastating loss of memory and most basic life skills. Meck shares her feelings and struggles and the ways she tried to adapt and “fit in” for the past twenty-five years, knowing she was different from other adults but not knowing just how much so. It’s a remarkable story that readers won’t soon forget.