Can't Remember What I Forgot

Author s Note

On the canted ceiling above my desk is a map of the brain. It
shows the frontal lobe and temporal lobe and parietal lobe and occipital
lobe as if they were places to visit Rome, Milan, Trieste,
San Remo. The map, of course, is dumb. It says nothing about what
goes on in those places: that deep in the middle of the temporal
lobe, which itself is deep in the middle of the brain, there is a tiny,
cashew-shaped region called the hippocampus that is essential to
forming new memories, or that the prefrontal cortex, which sits behind
the eyebrows, is vital to foresight and being polite and paying
attention, or that the occipital lobe, which brings up the rear of the
brain, is central to sight itself.

I look at that map sometimes and think about how it is my own
brain apprehending it, and that to do so, it is traveling express. And
then my mind, declaring its independence from my brain, begins to
wander among the events of the day, past and future, and plans for
summer vacation, and concern for a friend who is sick and the dog
in the yard, but never getting so far afield that it doesn t heed its
own call back.

Near the map, tacked to the wall, is a picture of the brain that is
doing all of that and all of this this writing, thinking, typing,
seeing my brain, in bright colors, which was taken a few years ago
in California. When I look at that picture I am not only seeing it,
but recalling that day, or aspects of it, so much has gone out with
the tide. I took notes on that trip, and carried a digital recorder, and
have read and reread those notes over the years, and listened to the
conversations, so I remember that day better than most, and what I
remember comes with a certain confidence, but even so it is fuzzy. I
cannot say, for instance, what kind of rental car I drove, or what
book I was reading later that afternoon when I went to the beach,
or which beach, specifically, it was.

We rely on memory not only to remember,

SUE HALPERN is the author of Four Wings and a Prayer, Migrations to Solitude, and two books of ction.

Fascinating .[Halpern s] accomplishment is to have drawn out the myriad threads of these stories, connecting them when possible, to produce a panoramic portrait of an intricate and largely unknown world.
New York Review of Books

Evincing a gift for perfect analogies and supple metaphors, mischievous humor, and righteous skepticism, Halpern is an exceptionally companionable and enlightening guide through the maze of memory maladies and the promising search for remedies.
Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

A vivid, often amusing introduction to a science that touches us all.
Publishers Weekly

Engrossing .High-quality science writing: an illuminating picture of investigators at work and a lucid explication of their findings.
Kirkus

"Educational, fabulously well written, and on a hot topic. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries."
Nancy Fontaine, Library Journal (starred review)

Like her fellow New Yorker writer, Malcolm Gladwell, Sue Halpern has the remarkable capacity genius, actually-- to absorb large amounts of complex information and deliver them to the reader in a comprehensible, engaging, page-turning way. In Can t Remember What I Forgot, she travels to the cutting-edge of medical and scientific research about memory and reports back with critical information for all of us now dealing with aging parents and with our own aging. Informative, beautifully written, and hard to put down, this is a book you have to remember not to forget to buy.
Julia Alvarez