The Vintage Book of Amnesia: An Anthology of Writing on the Subject of Memory Loss

by David Grand and Karen Joy Fowler

Book Overview

Jonathan Lethem is perhaps our most active literary voice mining the genre margins of our culture. In this unique collection he creates an anthology that no one else could. He draws on the work of such unforgettables as Julio Cortazar, who presents a man caught between the ancient and modern worlds unable to say which is real; Philip K. Dick, who tells the story of a man trapped on a spaceship of the somnolent, unable to sleep and slowly losing his mind; Shirley Jackson, who takes us on a nightmarish trip across town with a young secretary; and Oliver Sacks, who presents us with an aging hippie who possesses no memory of anything that has taken place since the early seventies. What Lethem has done is nothing less than define a new genre of literature-the amnesia story-and in the process he invites us to sit down, pick up the book, and begin to forget. Also including: John Franklin Bardin, Donald Barthelme, Thomas M. Disch, Karn Joy Fowler, David Grand, Anna Kavan, Haruki Murakami, Flann O'Brien, Edmund White, and many others.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375706615
• ISBN13: 9780375706615
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Mmmm... yummy.

Are you worried that coughing up the bucks for an anthology will leave you with two or three gem stories and a pile of duds? Well don't worry this time, kids, Lethem delivers the goods. At least eight solid keepers in this one that I will certainly read again at some point. Overall, the theme works very well, and the variety of experiences (from creepy to wacky) is pretty wide. It's not all bumps on the head, waking up in white-walled rooms...

Unforgettable

A terrific concept brilliantly executed. The editor has gathered a superb collection of stories and essays that address, directly or otherwise, the subject of memory loss. What is memory? What does it mean to remember, and why does it matter? These are only a few of the questions that are explored from many different perspectives by Martin Amis, Oliver Sacks, Vladimir Nabokov, Philip K. Dick, and many other distinguished writers. This is one book you won't soon forget!