false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177999770m/748945.jpg 748945 4 "Susannah was apparently perfect, as the dead so often become": Margaret Forster's <I>The Memory Box</I> opens with the challenge which runs right through this book. How do you get to know the dead? How can the dead <I>make</I> you get to know them? In this case, by leaving a box of strange, and disconnected, objects through which a daughter, Catherine, learns to trace the contours of her mother's life and the depths of her own loss in never having known her. Susannah, her mother, died when Catherine was six months old; she is brought up, happily, by her father and step-mother. Only on their deaths does she open the "memory box" and enter into the everyday complexity (there's no melodrama here) of her family life. Was Susannah perfect? And why did her loving husband marry so soon after her death? What has Catherine missed in never having known her? Critically acclaimed for, amongst others, <I>Lady's Maid</I> and <I>Mothers' Boys</I>, Forster brings a keen, and unsentimental, eye to her (at times remarkably painful) topic. She is, also, the biographer of Daphne du Maurier, and Forster has taken on her legacy of menace and romance (think of <I>Rebecca</I>) in this intelligent, and compelling, novel. --<I>Vicky Lebeau</I> 735085 1999 The Memory Box total:45|5:4|4:12|3:15|2:14|1:0| 45 141 79 11 2 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 09:36:44 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 09:39:49 -0700 2009 mean but since anyone who might know is now dead, she neve...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Apr 19 11:52:01 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 19 12:24:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 22 18:50:56 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 22 19:09:18 -0700 2008
I wouldn't say it wa...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 03:20:07 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 03:21:30 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jul 10 09:10:52 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 09:11:07 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Mon Jul 20 19:16:04 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 19:16:46 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat Jul 12 10:17:12 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 12 10:20:22 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Jul 23 09:21:37 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 23 09:23:37 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Aug 04 19:48:46 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 04 19:50:14 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 09:41:16 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 12:30:56 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Feb 20 13:17:20 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 13:23:37 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sun Nov 15 17:08:10 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 08 07:40:22 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 08 07:40:22 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Nov 02 14:40:52 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 02 14:40:52 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sat Oct 10 10:43:25 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 10:43:25 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 18 18:15:42 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 18:15:42 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Sep 07 13:24:39 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 13:24:39 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Aug 31 14:35:11 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 14:35:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Aug 24 05:13:38 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 24 05:13:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 21 13:36:32 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 21 13:36:32 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jul 29 06:27:14 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 29 06:27:25 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=748945