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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Feb 2016, 368 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2017, 368 pages
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Noah wants to go home. A seemingly easy request from most four year olds. But as Noah's single-mother, Janie, knows, nothing with Noah is ever easy. One day the pre-school office calls and says Janie needs to come in to talk about Noah, and no, not later, now - and life as she knows it stops.
For Jerome Anderson, life as he knows it has stopped. A deadly diagnosis has made him realize he is approaching the end of his life. His first thought - I'm not finished yet. Once a shining young star in academia, a graduate of Yale and Harvard, a professor of psychology, he threw it all away because of an obsession. Anderson became the laughing stock of his peers, but he didn't care - something had to be going on beyond what anyone could see or comprehend. He spent his life searching for that something else. And with Noah, he thinks he's found it.
Soon Noah, Janie and Anderson will find themselves knocking on the door of a mother whose son has been missing for eight years - and when that door opens, all of their questions will be answered.
Sharon Guskin has written a captivating, thought-provoking novel that explores what we regret in the end of our lives and hope for in the beginning, and everything in between. In equal parts a mystery and a testament to the profound connection between a child and parent, The Forgetting Time marks the debut of a major new talent.
One
On the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday, on the bleakest day of the worst February in memory, Janie made what would turn out to be the pivotal decision of her life: she decided to take a vacation.
Trinidad was not the best choice, maybe; if she was going that far she should really have gone to Tobago or Venezuela, but she liked the sound of it, Trin-i-dad, its musicality like a promise. She bought the cheapest ticket she could find and got there just as the carnival revelers were all going home, the gutters filled with the most beautiful trash she'd ever seen. The streets were empty, people sleeping off the party. The cleanup crew moved slowly, in a contented, underwater shuffle. She'd scooped up handfuls of confetti and stray glittery feathers and plastic jewelry from the curb and stuffed them in her pockets, trying to absorb frivolity by osmosis.
There was a wedding going on in her hotel, an American woman marrying a Trinidadian man, and most of the guests were there for...
This novel was fascinating, thought-provoking, page-turning magic. It has been a very long time since a novel has touched me so deeply. Beautifully done! (Nikki M) Ever since finishing this book, I find myself, daily, thinking about the possibilities of the way we view our past and our future. Thank you, BookBrowse, for an author I likely would not have found otherwise. It's that good! (Laure R)..continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers).
Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Train
The Forgetting Time is about memory and forgetting, grieving and letting go, and the lengths a mother will go to for her child. It is both a relentlessly paced page-turner and a profound meditation on the meaning of life. Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of Devotion
A very moving, soulful, and beautifully-made debut. Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Sister
Sharon Guskin has written a novel that's meticulously crafted without ever losing the heart and soul of the story. It's both a beautiful tale of the bond between a mother and her young son as well as a gripping mystery that asks that universal human question 'were we here before?' Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Time
Provocative, evocative, and fresh, Guskin's book is an explosive debut. Mary Morris, author of The Jazz Palace
A spellbinding ride. Guskin's beautifully rendered and wonderfully told novel explores the mysteries of how we connect to one another in the deepest of ways. What an amazing book. Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife
Sharon Guskin's debut is the literary equivalent of the sensation you get when, after stargazing from some hillside on a clear night, you're suddenly hit with the terrifying and exhilarating scope of the unknowable. A truly remarkable, dizzying and exquisite page-turner.
Sharon Guskin's debut novel, The Forgetting Time, explores reincarnation – specifically children who seem to experience it. In an interview about her research, she explains that after stumbling across a book about Dr. Ian Stevenson and his intense research of children and reincarnation, she was hooked.
Ian Stevenson (1918-2007) was a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for 50 years. His work focused on reincarnation and he spent over 40 years traveling around the world, studying over 3000 children who said they remembered having past lives. During that time, Stevenson pinpointed evidence suggesting that memories and physical injuries can be transferred from one lifetime to another. He ...
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