Why you need to read The Forgetting Time
The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin is a Richard and Judy Book Club choice this Autumn. Mantle Associate Publisher, Sam Humphreys is here to tell you why you need to read this book this Autumn.
We're delighted that The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin has been chosen as a Richard and Judy Book Club choice.
Mantle Associate Publisher, Sam Humphreys is here to tell you why you need to read this book this autumn.
Dear Reader,
I want you to imagine for a moment that you have a son. He’s called Noah and he’s four years old and you – because you’re his parent – love him more than life itself.
Now imagine he wakes in the night, most nights, crying. you go to comfort him, but he doesn’t want you. he wants someone else. He wants his real parent. His real mother. His real home.
It breaks your heart when he pushes you away, but even worse, you know his heart is breaking too – and you’re powerless to help.
that’s the starting point of The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin: a little boy who wants to go home, but who’s already there. a mother who’s at her wits’ end. and someone who might be able to help – except he’s in no position to, because he’s slowly losing his grip on the world.
What else can i tell you about it? it’s a story about love. about being a parent. about life and death. and it’s about what happens when you remember things you’re meant to have forgotten.
Jodi Picoult called it explosive. Kate Morton said it was irresistible. Diane Chamberlain that it was gripping. and Téa Obreht called it remarkable.
I love it. (I love all the books I publish, but this one is, I think, special: it was certainly the first book i read and acquired after starting at mantle where I thought, ‘I have to publish this book.’)
It’s entirely original, but reminds me a little of Emma Donoghue’s Room, insofar as it’s a story of an ordinary little boy growing up in extraordinary circumstances, and also The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold,
which is another book about death and life . . .
That’s pretty much it – except to say that i hope you love Sharon’s debut novel as much as i do. either way, i’d love to hear from you: I’m on twitter @samjhumphreys1.
Sam Humphreys
Associate Publisher, Mantle
The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin is out now.
The Forgetting Time
by Sharon Guskin
A Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Sharon Guskin's The Forgetting Time is a gripping yet heartfelt mystery and a beautiful tale of the bond between mother and child.
Noah is a little boy who knows things he shouldn't and remembers things he should have forgotten. Because as well as being a four-year-old called Noah, he remembers being a nine-year-old called Tommy.
He remembers his house.
His family.
His mother.
And now he wants to go home.
Two boys. Two mothers.
One unforgettable story . . .
'When I wasn't reading Sharon Guskin's The Forgetting Time, I was itching to return to it' – Jodi Picoult, author of Small Great Things.