Today, Edwin and Emily are happy to be a part of the The Memory Thief Blog Tour
hosted by JKSCommunications.
Find the other tour stops here.
The Memory Thief by Emily Colin
Publisher: Ballantine Books
432 Pages
In Emily Colin’s exquisite debut novel THE MEMORY THIEF (Ballantine Trade Paperback Original; On-Sale August 21, 2012) one man’s vow to his wife sparks a remarkable journey that tests the pull of memory and reaffirms the bonds of love.
Deftly weaving together two strands of plot, THE MEMORY THIEF spins an unforgettable tale of love lost and found. Though she has lived with her husband Aidan’s adventure-seeking tendencies for the entirety of their relationship, Maddie has particularly strong reservations when Aidan tells her of his plans to summit Alaska’s Mount McKinley. When she eventually gives in to him, Aidan promises her, “I will come back to you.” Yet, late one night, she receives shocking news: Aidan has died in an avalanche. Confronted with grief, newfound single parenthood, and the realization that J.C., Aidan’s climbing partner and best friend, has been in love with her for years, Maddie must swim through her swirling emotions in a quest for understanding.
Across the country, Nicholas Sullivan awakes from a motorcycle accident. Unable to remember any part of his life to this point, he finds that his dreams are haunted by images of a beautiful woman and a young boy. Feeling as though these mysterious people may hold the answers to his own problems, Nicholas is driven to find them. Nicholas’s journey leads him to great discoveries—which not only change his life, but Maddie’s, too.
Poignant, yet ultimately triumphant, THE MEMORY THIEF is a unique and compelling love story that marks Emily Colin as a young author to watch.
Advance Praise for Emily Colin and THE MEMORY THIEF
“This absorbing first effort brings to mind the mountaineers of a Jon Krakauer read, the tenderness of a Nicholas Sparks novel, and the enduring love story of Charles Martin’s The Mountain between Us, all sprinkled with a heady dose of passion. Colin is an author to watch and savor.”
—Booklist
“Dazzlingly original and as haunting as a dream, Colin’s mesmerizing debut explores the way memory, love and great loss bind our lives together in ways we might never expect. From its audacious opening to the knockout last pages, I was enthralled.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
“In THE MEMORY THIEF, love itself is a character, able to transcend all natural boundaries to find its way home, or to learn to let go. Emily Colin writes about loss with heartbreaking conviction, and yet there is a knowing sweetness at the core of this richly emotional tale. Here is a lovely,
self-assured debut from a writer to watch.”
—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
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GUEST POST:
I love book clubs.
Truly, I do. I love everything about them. I love the fact that folks use their love of reading as an excuse to gather, and then spend the first forty-five minutes talking about everything but the book. I love the way a good book club becomes an oasis from ordinary life, a safe space where you’ve earned the right not to worry about homework, dinner or laundry for the night. I love the way that, even if you only see the members of your book club once a month, you can pick right up where you left off, talking about one person’s obnoxious job and the other’s good-for-nothing boyfriend, celebrating small victories and grieving losses together. I love the way book clubs make you read things you would never have picked up otherwise; the way they establish their own rhythm and culture, a mini-society of literary fiends who get off on stories—their own and other people’s. When I moved to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1999 without knowing a soul but my four-month-old puppydog, and couldn’t find a community that felt right, guess what I did? I started a book club, and all these years later, we still get together once a month.
I am, you might say, a book club evangelist. So you can imagine my delight when I wrote a novel of my own—The Memory Thief, a blend of high-altitude mountaineering, a love story, a ghost story and a mystery—and local book clubs began contacting me, asking me if I’d come and speak. They seemed almost hesitant about it, as if they thought perhaps I’d see such an engagement as an inconvenience, or worse, a burden.
Needless to say, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Each invitation energized me, with a sense of anticipation that—ironically—was hard to put into words.
In part, of course, I was flattered. It’s fabulous enough for one person to want to read The Memory Thief, to choose to spend their hard-earned money on the book and their equally valuable time in the company of my imaginary friends, loosed upon the world at last. But to have a whole group of folks commit to reading my debut novel—which is, you understand, as much as part of myself as the scar on the bottom of my left foot or my stubborn, stick-straight hair—and then to get together, for the express purpose of discussing it? That was just too cool for school.
Then, too, there’s the unprecedented opportunity to get a sneak peak at other people’s book clubs, even if just for the evening. I love my book club dearly, and to be perfectly honest, at the first couple of events, I felt a bit as if I were cheating on it. I’d look around and think—in the immortal words of the Talking Heads—This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife! Then, like any adulterer rationalizing their behavior, I’d think, It’s okay, though. Because it’s just for tonight. And then I did it again. And again.
And I loved it.
There is something so fulfilling about sitting in a room with a group of people who have all read your novel, and who have definitive opinions about it. It’s incredible to hear what they think about your characters—who they adore, who could take a very long moonlit stroll off the end of an extraordinarily rickety pier. It’s fascinating to hear the questions they come up with, the things they want to know. It’s truly wonderful to have the chance to talk about Aidan and Maddie and Nicholas as if they’re real people, out there in the world living their lives—why they made the choices they did, how things could have turned out differently, if only. What this room full of readers would have done, in their stead.
Yes, I love book clubs. And this is why, even if you don’t live in Wilmington, I’d be more than happy to pay a visit to yours—by Skype, by speaker phone, by carrier pigeon. Check out my website for details: www.emilycolin.com. Book club aficionados, there’s a section just for you.
Curious? Check out the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMIjPV0TtYU
Big thanks to Emily for stopping by and JKSCommunications for setting up the tour and allowing us to be a part of it!
Thanks for having me, Edwin and Emily!
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