[.ca] The Memory Game (ISBN 0446619116)

Memory a game?:
Whether it be "Memory Game" or "Kim's Game", as the narrator describes them and then confesses to confusing the two, game theory becomes the controlling conceit for this exploration of family solidarity and family secrets. A terrible murder (with attendant ramifications of incest) is disclosed 25 years after the victim, a beautiful and enigmatic teenager, has been buried in a pit right outside the front door of her home. The gruesome discovery of a pregnant girl, who had been thought--by all but the murderer--to be merely missing, becomes the stimulus for the narrator, her childhood friend and rival, to embark on a quest to recover dark hidden memories of a vanished childhood among the "blue remembered hills" of her "land of lost content." The account that follows--with its frequent forays into psychotherapeautic sessions--is gripping, even as mesmerising as the psychotherapist himself seems to be, and the narrator goes through an ominous process of question and answer only to find ultimately that the "truth" of her breakthrough is not truth at all. The only disappointing part of this process comes in the rushed conclusion following her acceptance of the validity of the "false-memory" syndrome (an exposition of which is glossed over far too hurriedly); the denoument seems strangely contrived and much less believable than what has preceded it. Nevertheless this is an absorbing read. It will please the literary minded as well as mystery lovers. It has certainly left this reader with a taste for more from this spell-binding writer.

Compelling, but characters are tiresome:
The Memory Game is a startling and well written novel. The characters are described with great clarity and the plot is clever with several deft twists. The quality of writing is impeccable, and everything is explained in a lyrical style. Why, then, only Three Stars? The characters may be original and three-dimensional but most are unlikeable. The very British word 'pompous' describes them all perfectly. I almost stopped reading halfway through because the characters were all so self-absorbed and stereotypically 'upper class' in an irritatingly bohemian way. The past and present actions of all the characters were made up of a mass of illicit affairs, broken marriages, secrets, lies and arguments. The one act that really underlined to me why I disliked them all so much was when Jane's brother decided to make a documentary about them all and despite initial protests they all took part in it - it was such a cold blooded thing to do and seemed so pretentious. The complex web of infidelities also wore thin, it got to a stage where there were so many affairs between different members of the same family that it was difficult to recall them all. To some extent, I came to sympathize with the narrator, Jane, although I thought she was insufferable a lot of the time. The book was written in a first person narrative but I could not relate to nearly all of her life experiences. Even her love interest, Casper, managed to irritate me. Why the hell would any sane person want to name their daughter Fanny, which refers to a woman's genitals in Britain? Overall The Memory Game is a competent thriller with a shocking, albeit thoroughly depressing, ending. The one thing that really shone out at me was Nicci French's writing style which was faultless. Often a new paragraph would start with a surprising opening line that would draw me in and keep me hooked. JoAnne