All Is Not Forgotten

Starred review from May 16, 2016
The rape of 15-year-old Jenny Kramer in the well-to-do town of Fairview, Conn., propels this exceptional psychological thriller from Walker (Social Lives). The masked rapist wore a condom and was careful to leave no forensic evidence at the spot in the woods where he attacked Jenny after she wandered away from a party attended by nearly everyone in the 10th grade at Fairview High. Jenny’s parents, Charlotte and Tom, have vastly different reactions to this horrible assault on their daughter. Charlotte worries about her social standing, while Tom wants vengeance. When a doctor suggests a medication that will erase Jenny’s memory of the attack, Charlotte immediately agrees. As her parents grapple with their own emotional responses, they ignore Jenny’s pain. Alan Forrester, the family’s psychiatrist, provides the nonjudgmental, almost clinical narration. Forrester only wants to help the Kramers, but as Jenny’s treatment continues, he fears that the investigation will implicate someone close to him. While secret after secret about the residents of Fairview add to the suspense, Forrester’s secrets may be the most stunning of all. 250,000-copy first printing. Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Associates Literary Management.

May 1, 2016
The traumatic memories of a teenager's rape are medically erased, but lingering thoughts of the attack remain, infecting everyone in her close-knit community. 15-year-old Jenny Kramer thought the party she'd been invited to would be the moment when she'd finally blossom, maybe even get a moment alone with the dashing Doug Hastings. Instead she found herself drunk, in the woods, the victim of a vicious hourlong rape, of which Walker spares the reader no detail in this unnecessarily explicit debut. After she's rushed to the hospital, Jenny's parents--blubbering car salesman Tom and tightly put together homemaker Charlotte --decide to give her an experimental drug cocktail to erase her memories of the attack. If the process were successful, there'd be no book, so enter the skin-crawlingly smug narrator, soon introduced as psychiatrist Dr. Alan Forrester, who begins treating Jenny, along with her whole family, after her nearly successful suicide attempt. It's difficult to empathize with a character--our narrator no less--who looks at a 15-year-old assault victim and wonders to himself "why [he] could not see the rape in her eyes." As the well-to-do enclave of Fairview, Connecticut, tries to regroup in the wake of zero viable suspects, Tom Kramer makes it his mission to find Jenny's rapist, jumping on every slim lead, like the sighting of a blue Honda Civic near the party. The introduction of one of Alan's other patients, a soldier who endured the same treatment as Jenny, merely clutters an already busy story whose resolution is anything but satisfying. A repugnant narrator, even an unreliable one, makes it difficult to focus on the true victim, one who is crushed under the weight of this ridiculous plot.

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May 1, 2016
After 15-year-old Jenny Kramer is raped, her parents allow doctors to administer a new drug that interrupts memory creation. Jenny loses her traumatic memories but is filled with an unrelenting, targetless anger that leads her to attempt suicide. Fortunately, the resident psychiatrist in Fariview, Connecticut, where Jenny lives, has experience recapturing memories from treating Navy SEAL Sean Logan, who received the memory-inhibiting drug after losing his unit in Afghanistan. As Jenny and Sean develop a strong dependency on each other, Jenny has flashbacks implicating people within their sheltered community. At the same time, Jenny's family struggles with her father's obsession with finding her attacker and her mother's denial about the rape's devastating consequences. Narrated by Jenny's psychiatrist, this exploration of the dangerous repercussions of erasing traumatic memories will appeal to fans of S. J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep (2011) and William Landay's Defending Jacob (2012). Some thriller fans may find the pacing slow, but the cast is immensely relatable and book groups will enjoy debating their decisions, from the drug's administration to the surprise conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)