Book Review: “Recursion” by Blake Crouch
Publisher Synopsis: Memory makes reality. That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.
Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.
As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.
But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them? - Penguin Random House
Rating (out of 5): 4.5
Review:
I read this book in 3 hours, barely pausing to put it down, even with the distractions of Central Park, the reality of a mild tequila-induced hangover, and the fact that I am not scientifically-inclined at all. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.
This was my first book I have read by Blake Crouch (today was the first day I actually looked up a review of his first book “Dark Matter”, and tbqh, I’m glad I started with “Recursion” — I love a book with a strong female lead). I heard about it through Anne Bogel’s wonderful Summer Reading Guide (#goals), and she described it as: “part save-the-world thriller, part police procedural, part love story, and above all, a real brain bender.” I was intrigued, I requested it from the library, and I was so excited to be the first person to check it out.
I knew going in that there would be multiple timelines and that it would address the fallibility of human memory, but it still took me about 50-75 pages to get in the swing of things (see above re: tequila). The book opens in 2018, with cop Barry trying to talk a woman off a ledge who is suffering from a mysterious ailment - False Memory Syndrome; then it suddenly swings to 2007, where we meet Helena, a scientist investigating the nature of memory and how to preserve it. It swings between the two timelines without a lot of warning, and at first, they don’t seem at all connected — until, boom! they are, in the most explosive way.
At that point, I thought that I had figured out the basic plot structure and I would be able to predict how the rest of the book would work - lol, no, Elizabeth. Crouch’s work is a puzzle in the best sense, touching on the nature of time, memory, death, and what happens when we as people try to manipulate the above — even with good intentions. As a group, we have agreed to avoid spoilers on the blog, so I can’t really go into more detail here without giving away major plot points that I would have hated to know in advance, but trust me when I say that it is a wild and enjoyable ride that will have you laughing and gasping (and sometimes googling complicated physics theorems).
Admittedly, I found the last 50 pages to be cyclical and repetitive — there are only so many times that you can read about failed attempts to save the world. However, upon further reflection, that was definitely a narrative tool; Crouch wanted us, the reader, to feel the monotony and futility of their mission to save humanity from itself. I also loved Barry and Helena’s love story, as I didn’t expect to have an examination of whether or not people could truly be soulmates in the midst of such a mindbender. All in all, while I like things to be wrapped up in a neat little bow, I appreciate that Crouch left the end of this novel a touch open-ended; it was the appropriate ending to this engrossing and challenging read.
My overwhelming feeling after reading this book is “why can’t people just let things alone?". Helena, the hero we don’t deserve, set out to create a technology that would help people retain their memories, inspired by her mother’s battle with dementia. Her well-intentioned work was soon hijacked by a bizarre and ruthless “benefactor,” with disastrous results that set off “False Memory Syndrome” on an ever-increasing scale. As I was reading this, I kept thinking about, first, what point in my life I would go back to as a “turning point” and then what I would do with that road not taken — and how utterly bizarre it would be to have the memories of a shadow life come back to me unexpectedly. Then I started thinking about how many people that would impact, and when I scaled it up the same way that Crouch did, I can see how people would lose their minds. I don’t mean that in jest — one of the central premises of the book is that people cannot handle the multiple strains of memories, and their reactions to that.
When I went to pull the publisher synopsis, I saw a blurb from Penguin Random House that this work was “the inspiration for Shondaland’s upcoming Netflix film.” While I have somewhat strong feelings about everything getting adapted for Netflix or Hulu — they can be summed up by Kara Brown pretty succinctly: Read! A! Book!* — I believe that this is well-suited for the format. I look forward to seeing what Shonda Rimes does with it, as I don’t really consider this her genre, and I hope that she serves the subject matter well.
Trigger Warnings: Violence, nuclear war, men with superiority complexes and too much money
TL; DR: If you like reading about the nature of memory and human existence, if you think science and capitalism are sometimes are going too far, if you like your summer blockbuster read to have a more sci-fi bent, this book is for you. Super suspenseful, well-paced, and thought-provoking.
*Author’s Note: I know that linking to Kara’s pasta blog is an odd departure in a book review that involves physics and the nature of time and memory, but her entire journey in making noodles is a wonderful treat. If you haven’t read it yet, I’d recommend it as highly as I recommend “Recursion”.
