Before I Forget
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
"A tender, funny portrait of love in its myriad forms." —Mikki Brammer, bestselling author of The Collected Regrets of Clover
A funny, heartfelt, late coming-of-age story that examines the role of memory in holding us back—and in moving us forward—for fans of The Collected Regrets of Clover and Maame.
Call it inertia. Call it a quarter-life crisis. Whatever you call it, Cricket Campbell is stuck. Despite working at a zeitgeisty wellness company, the 26-year-old feels anything but well. Still adrift after a tragedy that upended her world a decade ago, she has entered early adulthood under the weight of a new burden: her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
When Cricket’s older sister Nina announces it is time to move Arthur from his beloved Adirondack lake house into a memory-care facility, Cricket has a better idea. In returning home to become her father’s caretaker, she hopes to repair their strained relationship and shake herself out of her perma-funk. But even deeply familiar places can hold surprises.
As Cricket settles back into the family house at Catwood Pond—a place she once loved, but hasn’t visited since she was a teenager—she discovers that her father possesses a rare gift: as he loses his grasp of the past, he is increasingly able to predict the future. Before long, Arthur cements his reputation as an unlikely oracle, but for Cricket, believing in her father’s prophecies might also mean facing the most painful parts of her history. As she begins to remember who she once was, she uncovers a vital truth: the path forward often starts by going back.
With laugh-out-loud humor and profound grace, Before I Forget explores the nuances of family, the complexities of memory, and how sometimes, the people we know the best are the ones who surprise us the most.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An aimless 20-something woman finds purpose as a caretaker in this sharp novel from Hoen (The Arc). Cricket Campbell surprises everyone, including herself, when she volunteers to care for her father, Arthur, who has Alzheimer's, in the Adirondacks. Having avoided her hometown for a decade, she's finally "ready to be something other than young." She struggles to find work, though, and is surprised when Arthur claims her late boyfriend, Seth, has been paying him visits at their house on the edge of Catwood Pond, where Seth died in an accident on the ice a decade earlier. After Arthur's claim that the loons will return to the pond proves true, his friend Carl agrees with a local dance teacher named Paula that his dementia has given him prophetic powers. Cricket isn't sure, but she sees an opportunity when her former boss Gemma, a wellness influencer, spreads the word about Arthur's supposed abilities, and soon people are begging for visits with the so-called Oracle of Catwood Pond. As Arthur's health declines and money becomes a more pressing problem, Cricket considers cashing in on his newfound fame. Hoen's satire of social media and opportunism adds bite to the tender portrayal of a young woman watching a parent fade. This family drama is worth a look.
