The Book of Memory

December 21, 2015
Gappah’s first novel (after the story collection An Elegy for Easterly) chronicles the death row missives written to an international journalist by a prisoner named Memory in present-day Zimbabwe. Memory, an albino woman, begins by talking about life in incarceration, the litany of inmates at Chikurubi Prison
(a real prison in Harare known for its poor conditions) and the guards in charge, who are led by a bully named Synodia. Gappah crafts ample suspense regarding Memory’s past and the circumstances of the incident that sent her to prison. She’s charged with the murder of her guardian, Lloyd Hendricks, a white man whom Memory suspects bought her from her parents when she was nine. Hints are dropped about how the arrival of a man named Zenzo ruined Memory’s life with Lloyd. Gappah also recounts Memory’s childhood under her protective father and mentally unstable mother, the latter of whom subjected her albino daughter to a myriad of dubious healers for their spiritual cures. Certain aspects of the incident at the center of the story remain far-fetched, though the narrative works as a cautionary tale of how superstition and prejudice can shape one’s destiny. The result is a beguiling mystery.

October 1, 2015
An albino woman in Zimbabwe recounts the unlikely story of how she ended up on death row, in a debut novel from Guardian First Book Award winner Gappah (An Elegy for Easterly: Stories, 2009). Two years after Memory is convicted of murder, she records her life story for an American journalist in hopes it will help win her an appeal. At the age of 9, she writes, her parents sold her to Lloyd Hendricks, a white university professor who lives in tony Umwinsidale, far from the crowded township of Memory's youth. At Lloyd's, Memory devours books, rides horses, and, after a dermatologist helps heal her blistered skin, becomes "just another girl." But almost two decades after they first meet, Lloyd ends up dead in his swimming pool and Memory is imprisoned, left to sort out how it all transpired. The scope here is ambitious. Gappah takes readers across racial and economic lines and sets Memory's complex upbringing against 30 years of Zimbabwean history. Her protagonist is equally complicated: erudite, unreliable, winningly mordant (she jokes that there's so much oil in the prison food "you almost fear that America will invade"). But Memory's a coy narrator, too, withholding information even after circumstances would indicate she'd reveal it. "Then Zenzo entered our lives, and everything wilted," ends a typical chapter, but who Zenzo is and how he relates to Memory's incarceration isn't explained until many pages later. This is especially confounding given the nature of her mission: if Memory's goal is to offer a sympathetic portrait to a journalist, why be deliberately mysterious? By novel's end, most questions are answered, but readers may feel frustrated at the Byzantine path they traveled to get there. Gappah's elaborate tale is intricately plotted, but her determination to build suspense ultimately saps the narrative of some much-needed momentum.

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November 15, 2015
Gappah's vivid first novel, which follows the story collection, An Elegy for Easterly (2009), is an exploration into the mysterious grip of memory and perception. The narrator, significantly named Memory, is a young albino woman on death row in Zimbabwe's Chikurubi prison, charged with the murder of her white legal guardian, Lloyd. Memory documents her life leading up to her conviction, narrating a nonlinear tale that alternates between her childhood and her incarceration. Growing up in dusty Mufakose Township, Memory is haunted by her mother's unpredictable outbursts and the death of her younger sister, events further complicated by feelings of alienation due to her unusual appearance. Memory's fate is indelibly altered when, at nine, she recalls being sold to Lloyd and thus thrust into a completely new world of privilege. As Memory mines her past, she must also navigate Zimbabwe's tricky political landscape and relationships with fellow prisoners and guards. Eventually, her recollections are challenged as realities come to light. Gappah offers a nuanced, engaging journey as Memory rights the balance between truth and long-held assumptions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2016

In her first novel, which follows the successful story collection An Elegy for Easterly, Gappah returns to her native Zimbabwe. Memory, the smart and often surprisingly witty narrator, begins by describing the abominable conditions of Chikurubi Prison, where she waits on death row. She has been found guilty of murdering Lloyd Hendricks, a white man and her adopted father. Gappah moves readers back and forth in time to reveals the factors resulting in Memory's arrest and conviction. With the slow unraveling of events, the book is structured like a whodunit, but at its heart is the relationship of memory to truth. Memory's recollections are often disputable, calling into question her reliability as a storyteller and forcing readers to wonder about their own remembrance of things past. The narrator's outsider status as an albino, an adopted child, a woman, and a convict further complicates her perspective. But the novel is also strengthened by its investigation of forgiveness, and the author offers fresh insight into Zimbabwe's struggle for independence and Robert Mugabe's rise to power. VERDICT At times, it's not clear whether gaps in the story are owing to Memory's problematic recollections or to occasionally inconsistent narrative development. Overall, however, Gappah delivers her themes successfully, while stimulating all the senses with Memory's vivid descriptions of food, music, heat, colors, and scents. [See Prepub Alert, 8/3/15.]--Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2015

Winner of the 2009 Guardian First Book Award for An Elegy for Easterly, Gappah again takes us to her native Zimbabwe, where an albino woman named Memory is imprisoned in Harare's Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison for murdering her adoptive father.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.