The Library of Traumatic Memory - Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan's novels often (always?) feature figures dealing with trauma, loss, the past, each struggling with a disconnect in their lives. He has explored this through a number of variations including metaphorical or literal ghosts. In his latest novel, Jordan writing in the realm of futuristic science fiction for the first time, he deals with a speculative scientific approach where memories and trauma can be genetically altered, but the past and the future are linked in other ways that aren't so easily erased. Written in Jordan's familiar, evocative literary style, his latest novel is enriched by his extension into new realms. The novel is divided into two parts. In part one, the story takes in two timelines, one in the past in 1886, the other 200 years in the future in 2086, both periods lined by two figures from the Cartwright family. They are linked, Jordan style, by innumerable connections, by family evidently, but also by landscape, buildings and memory that is imbue...