In the wise and beautiful second collection from the acclaimed,
Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestselling author of All
the Light We Cannot See, and Cloud Cuckoo Land, "Doerr writes about
the big questions, the imponderables, the major metaphysical dreads, and
he does it fearlessly" (The New York Times Book Review).
Set on four continents, Anthony Doerr's new stories are about memory,
the source of meaning and coherence in our lives, the fragile thread
that connects us to ourselves and to others. Every hour, says Doerr, all
over the globe, an infinite number of memories disappear. Yet at the
same time children, surveying territory that is entirely new to them,
push back the darkness, form fresh memories, and remake the world.
In the luminous and beautiful title story, a young boy in South Africa
comes to possess an old woman's secret, a piece of the past with the
power to redeem a life. In "The River Nemunas," a teenage orphan moves
from Kansas to Lithuania to live with her grandfather, and discovers a
world in which myth becomes real. "Village 113," winner of an O'Henry
Prize, is about the building of the Three Gorges Dam and the seed keeper
who guards the history of a village soon to be submerged. And in
"Afterworld," the radiant, cathartic final story, a woman who escaped
the Holocaust is haunted by visions of her childhood friends in Germany,
yet finds solace in the tender ministrations of her grandson.
Every story in Memory Wall is a reminder of the grandeur of life--of
the mysterious beauty of seeds, of fossils, of sturgeon, of clouds, of
radios, of leaves, of the breathtaking fortune of living in this
universe. Doerr's language, his witness, his imagination, and his
humanity are unparalleled in fiction today.
