Review: Memory Wall (Doerr)

As a Boise resident, I’ve made it a point to read books by Boise-based writers. I have previously reviewed books by Mitch Wieland (God’sDogs) and Brady Udall (The Lonely Polygamist) and have become big fans of both. Wieland and Udall are not local writers, but rather grifted writers who happen to live and work in Boise as a result of connections to Boise State University’s M.F.A. program. I recently finished a book by a third talented Boise-based writer, Anthony Doerr, who also has taught at Boise State’s M.F.A. program. As an aside,Doerr has written a spot-on article that articulates what many of us love aboutBoise. What I was discovered was another talented storyteller and skilled writer.

Doerr’s Memory Wall (Scribner, 2010) is a collection of six short stories (plus a bonus story if you waited for the paperback edition). The stories are unrelated in time and space. But they all related to universal themes of the human condition.  Fear and hope. Death and renewal. Suffering and resilience. Faith and uncertainty. The book’s namesake story “Memory Wall” is about an aging white South African woman with dementia whose fading memories become valuable to others and as a consequence become a threat to her safety. “Procreate, Generate” follows a young couple in Wyoming whose marriage is tested by long-simmering emotional issues exacerbated by infertility. “The Demilitarized Zone” features an Idaho man whose wife has left him and who attempts to shield the news from their son, a young soldier serving along the North and South Korean border. “Village” is the story of cultural changes in modern China, as an old woman loses her ancestral home and occupation when forced to a city apartment when a new dam floods her village. “The River Nemunas” is about a 15-year-old girl from Kansas who has lost both parents to cancer and moves to Lithuania to live with her maternal grandfather. “Afterworld” explores the dreams of an old woman dying in Ohio and dreaming of her childhood in Nazi Germany, in particular her friends from the orphanage where she lived who did not escape the Holocaust.  “The Deep” is set in Detroit during the Great Depression and features a young boy living with the knowledge that a defective heart assures that he likely will not survive beyond his teens.

Doerr writes with clarity and purpose. He does not invite you to pity his characters, nothing is romanticized or sentimentalized. At times his writing seems detached and understated. But you begin to appreciate the complexity and depth of the characters as the story unfolds. He treats readers as adults: you get a few loose ends and have to make some informed conclusions but you have ample material to anticipate the answers. And while Doerr’s writing style is terse, he delivers a rich and evocative reading experience. 

Memory Wall is a wonderful collection of stories and is worth your time. And while you’re at it, give Brady Udall and Mitch Wieland and look too. You can thank me later.

RCM