Case Study On Ann Brashares’ My Name Is Memory

Her byline instantly appealed to her target audience-people who read love stories. And that definitely include me.
I picked up the book, turned to the back cover, skimmed through it and-in less than 30 seconds-put it on the top of my To-Borrow stack. So far, she has done really well on the marketing aspect of her book-an inviting title, an appealing byline and a well written synopsis on the back cover. Already, I couldn’t wait to get home and get tucked into it.
324 pages later, what can I say except that the book does not disappoint. It held me captive for an afternoon that stretched into the night, interrupted only by my need for sleep before continuing on the next morning. A page turner, Ann Brashares masterfully crafted a story that makes putting the book down almost impossible.
My Name Is Memory is a story about a man-Daniel-who has the gift of remembering all the details of his many lives. He has lived over a period of 1,500 years, born into all kinds of families, across different civilizations-from North Africa all the way to the United States. And in all the many lives he had lived, he only ever loved one woman-Lucy. In every life that he reincarnated into, all he ever wanted was to find Lucy. Their paths crossed many times but each is not without its own twisted ending.
What Ann has done really well in this book is her use of different narrative points of view. In My Name Is Memory, she uses two different narrative points of view:
1. From a first person’s point of view as Daniel.
2. From a multiple third person’s point of view, looking at Daniel and Lucy-individually and together.
The book starts off with Daniel speaking in the first person (I, myself, me) about his gift of memory. Although short (a page and a half), it sets out the context of the rest of the book, and gives us a peek into Daniel’s psyche-his history, his thoughts and his emotions.
In the book, two stories unfold in parallel with each other-the first is Daniel’s many lives across the period of 1,500 years; and the second being the story of Lucy and Daniel over the period of six years (from 2004 to 2010). Ann has kept these two stories unfolding side-by-side clearly and cleanly by the appropriate use of structure. She alternates between the two stories and the two different narrative points of view on a chapter-by-chapter basis. By clearly spelling out the time and place where the story takes shape, there is no confusion about which story is being told, and by whom.
Another great technique Ann has used is that she varies the need for details between the two stories. In the story of Daniel over 1,500 years, she keeps the details as sparse as possible so as not to detract from the essence of the story, but still enough to paint a picture of the condition and the civilization in which he lived without overwhelming the readers. In the second story-the modern day Daniel and Lucy-there are more details about the setting (location, furniture, climate etc) and the characters (how they are dressed, their actions, thoughts and feelings).
This also highlights the fact that authors need not overwhelm readers with unnecessary details of a life that they cannot relate to-in this case, Daniel’s other lives from about 500 A.D. onwards. Because those lives are so far removed from present day reality, there need not be intricate details in the writing in order to move the story forward. Another reason why there is no need for too much detail in the first story is due to the fact that it is narrated from the first person’s point of view. The first story is essentially being told as a reflection or reminiscence of the past, and as far as our memories go, it is hard pressed to find someone who can remember every detail of his or her life vividly. The second story-being told from a third person’s point of view-is akin to a movie director setting out the scenes of the story, using details to enhance the story telling so that we are captivated and kept engaged as the story unfolds.
Although the theme of the story is predominantly about love, Ann also brings into light the concept of reincarnation, the idea that souls are reborn into different bodies over a span of several lifetimes. At regular intervals, questions about reincarnation appear, which demand an explanation either from Daniel or from his friend Ben, who-like him-also has the gift of memory. There is also a part where Lucy elicits the help of a hypnotist to perform past life regression on her. Readers are involuntarily exposed to such concepts through the story, which is informative in nature,