Review: The Story of Forgetting, by Stefan Merrill Block

In his first novel, Merrill-Block tells the same painful story from opposite ends of the family spectrum. The author, who has done a significant amount of research into Alzheimer's disease, creates a fictional DNA-related strain of the very real early-onset condition to trace the disease from early England through the centuries to a Texas family separated by deceit and sorrow.

Fifteen year-old Seth Waller, a studious victim of victims in high school hierarchy, son of Jamie, who has recently been institutionalized because of the severity of her early-onset disease. For some reason, Jamie has always hidden her past from her husband and son, to the point that neither has any idea who her parents were or where she was originally from. Seth, who is used to finding answers to all problems he is presented with, breaks into the online research files of a scientist studying this strain of EOA, and obtains the names of those the sceintist has identified with the disease. Realizing he is somehow related to all the people on the list, he begins searching out those within reach of his Texas town.

Seventy year-old Abel lives alone in his decrepit home, reliving his memories of the past. Due to his disability - he is a hunchback - he never married, but lived with his brother and sister-in-law, with whom he had been desperately in love. Now, as his once expansive farm is surrounded by McMansions, he waits for his past to catch up with him.

The Story of Forgetting is told in alternating chapters by both main characters: Seth's from just before his mother is diagnosed; Abel's from his youth onward. As Abel's story stretches towards the current time, Seth's reaches both backward and forward as he attempts to connect himself with both his past and his future.

The story is enjoyable, and an amazingly sensitive and complicated first offering from an author not yet old enough to have had a family of his own. Abel's story was touching and bittersweet, while Seth was believable as a fictional child detective, although some of his interviews seemed mildly pointless in regards to the overall plot. The sections regarding the familial origin of the EOA DNA strain were a bit belabored, but the premis was entertaining and somewhat humerous.

Rating: four out of five stars: well-written interwoven tale of family, loss and regret