Yes, the plot of S. J. Watson’s first novel is intriguing. Christine Lucas, evidently the victim of a rare form of amnesia, awakens each morning in a strange bed next to a strange man. It seems that her memory vanishes every 24 hours, the aftermath of a traumatic accident. She thinks of herself as a carefree, and rather loose girl in her twenties. Thus, it’s more than a shock when she looks in the bathroom mirror, and notes the wrinkles around her eyes, “...the skin on the cheeks and under the chin sags; the lips are thin; the mouth turned down....” She realizes she is looking at herself, but she is a woman in her late forties - impossible, she is 20 years younger.
She soon finds that the stranger in the bed is her husband, Ben, and more discoveries follow. She has written a book; she has had a son, Adam; she has had an affair. She is contacted by a neuropsychologist, Dr. Nash, who says he has read of her case and believes he can help her. Before long he has instructed her to keep a journal of each day in the hopes of rekindling some of her lost years. She does this, keeping it from Ben and hiding the journal in a shoe box in her closet. Dr. Nash calls her each morning, reminding her to read her journal - the first entry is “Don’t trust Ben.”
So begins an agonizing search for clues as to what happened during the past 20 years, with new knowledge coming a bit at a time, needing to be fit into the puzzle of her past life.
For this reader it was a slow process, too slow at times as the story is related in Christine’s voice with repeated readings of the journal. There is a neat twist toward the finish and a totally unexpected ending. Plus, Ridley Scott has purchased film rights, all of which bodes well for S. J. Watson’s future.
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