While British author Emily Critchley's graceful novel One Puzzling Afternoon is about cognitive deterioration, the story's beauty is in how it elegantly unpacks memory, friendship, and regret. It embraces the painful experience of dementia, its relentless ride through the grays of the world when colors have long ago disappeared.

Edie is in her eighties, has lived in Ludthorpe, England all her life, and has a "foggy brain." It's a struggle to remember day-to-day details and she resents her loss of independence. That a woman named Josie, hired by her family, comes to help with household chores is one more thing to bristle at, but Edie's reaction is layered. When she feels like herself, she knows the feeling won't last.

One day, during a bout of fogginess, she sees her teenage best friend Lucy standing in front of the post office exactly as she was in 1951. But seeing Lucy isn't ...