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Published Feb 2014
288 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
What would you do if you lost your past?
In 1988 Su Meck was twenty-two and married with two children when a ceiling fan in her kitchen fell and struck her on the head, leaving her with a traumatic brain injury that erased all her memories of her life up to that point. Although her body healed rapidly, her memories never returned. Yet after just three weeks in the hospital, Su was released and once again charged with the care of two toddlers and a busy household.
Adrift in a world about which she understood almost nothing, Su became an adept mimic, gradually creating routines and rituals that sheltered her and her family, however narrowly, from the near-daily threat of disaster - or so she thought. Though Su would eventually relearn to tie her shoes, cook a meal, and read and write, nearly twenty years would pass before a series of personally devastating events shattered the "normal" life she had worked so hard to build, and she realized that she would have to grow up all over again.
In her own indelible voice, Su offers us a view from the inside of a terrible injury, with the hope that her story will help give other brain injury sufferers and their families the resolve and courage to build their lives anew. Piercing, heartbreaking, but finally uplifting, this book is the true story of a woman determined to live life on her own terms.
"Meck relates with excruciating honesty her journey out of oblivion." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. [R]emarkable ... Compelling and inspirational and, one hopes, an important impetus for ongoing brain research." - Booklist
"One ordinary day, Su Meck lost her memory. This is the highly unusual story of how she remembered herself - and reconciled the person she was with the world around her." - Alexandra Horowitz, author of the New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog
"I Forgot to Remember is a brave and raw story about the damage and trials a head injury can inflict on an entire family. Su Meck's spellbinding tale of life, injury and then the arduous task of re-learning everything, even down to how to love again, reminds us all of the importance of living in the moment and the need to cherish the memories we own." - Lee Woodruff, coauthor of the #1 bestsellerIn an Instant
This information about I Forgot to Remember was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Su Meck is pursuing degrees in music and book studies from Smith College. I Forgot to Remember is her first book; her work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine. She and her husband, Jim, have three grown children and live in Northampton, Massachusetts, with their two Lab Rescue dogs, Fern and Farley, and their two tuxedo cats, Apollo and Athena.
Daniel de Visé is a journalist and author who has worked at The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and five other newspapers in a twenty-three-year career. He shared a 2001 Pulitzer Prize and has garnered many other national and regional journalism awards; his investigative reporting has twice led to the release of wrongly convicted men from life terms in prison. A graduate of Wesleyan and Northwestern universities, he lives with his wife and children in Maryland. He is working on his second book.
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