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A Novel
by Tory Henwood Hoen
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.
"I loved this magical book. Tory Henwood Hoen approaches Alzheimer's with generosity, wonder, and tender-hearted storytelling. The result is an uplifting tale full of wisdom, healing, and deeply human, funny characters. When I got to the end, I had tears in my eyes and expansion in my heart." ―Rebecca Barry, author of Recipes for a Beautiful Life
"An emotional, tender, yet restorative read. What I liked most was that there wasn't just a focus on the loss of memory but the gaining of something, too. A wonderful and necessary reminder that whilst life's worst cases can take away, the same cases can also give." ―Jessica George, New York Times bestselling author of Maame
This information about Before I Forget was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tory Henwood Hoen is the author of The Arc. Her writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, and Bon Appétit, among other publications. She attended Brown University, and she currently lives in New England.
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