Books
Before I Go to Sleep

by S. J. Watson
Harper, June 2011, $25.99

There’s something terrifying about the idea of losing one’s memory, and S. J. Watson uses that fear to subtle and elegant effect in this claustrophobic and suspenseful literary thriller.

Christine wakes in an unfamiliar bed beside a man she doesn’t know. She feels ashamed of herself, but there is worse in store. When she stumbles into the bathroom and looks in the mirror she sees a middle-aged stranger. It’s the result of a car accident, she learns when the strange man explains that he is her husband Ben, and that she has amnesia and has to relearn every morning who she is. After Ben leaves for work, she gets a call from a doctor who has been treating her. If she looks in her closet, he tells her, she’ll find a journal where she has been recording any memories that surface. Following his instructions, she locates the notebook and starts to read her own story, one that begins with the disquieting instruction, “Don’t trust Ben.” Over the next 350 pages, we experience Christine’s daily erasure and her mundane life as an isolated housewife, but bit by bit, with the help of her secret diary, she pieces together the memory of a previous life and a violent attack.

Reading this accomplished novel is like waking over and over again from a disturbing dream, trying to grasp its meaning just as it fades, leaving nothing but cold fear behind—and a compulsion to start the next chapter.

Barbara Fister

watson_beforeigotosleepS. J. Watson uses fear to subtle and elegant effect in this suspenseful literary thriller.

Teri Duerr
2080

by S. J. Watson
Harper, June 2011, $25.99

Watson
June 2011
before-i-go-to-sleep
25.99
Harper