Maximum Shelf: THE FORGETTING TIME

Today’s #FridayReads pick is also a Maximum Shelf Awareness feature: THE FORGETTING TIME by Sharon Guskin.

First-time novelist Guskin looks at choices, regret and second chances in the powerful story of a little boy who remembers life as someone else and the adults who struggle to help him find peace.

“Intercut with excerpted case studies from actual past-life researcher Dr. Jim Tucker’s Life Before Life: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives, Guskin’s drama is honest, even comforting, but never gimmicky. She challenges readers to dream beyond conventional boundaries and consider that human consciousness may be more complicated and far-reaching than science or Western religion believe. At the same time, her grasp of the beauty and ferocity of a mother’s love grounds the story in a frame anyone can accept. The complex but graceful knitting together of the story’s loose ends will give the reader a sense of balance and lightness that comes from remembering how many unexplained wonders the universe has in store for all of us.”   Shelf Awareness

“Readers will be galvanized by Guskin’s sharply realized and sympathetic characters with all their complications, contradictions, failures, sorrows, and hope. Deftly braiding together suspense, family drama, and keen insights into the workings of the brain, Guskin poses key and unsettling questions about love and memory, life and death, belief and fact. A novel that bridges the fuzzy categories of ‘literary’ and ‘commercial,’ THE FORGETTING TIME offers a vast spectrum of significant and nuanced topics that will catalyze probing discussions.”   Booklist, starred review

A February 2016 Indie Next pick!

Click here to read the full Shelf Awareness summary, review and full interview with Sharon Guskin.

THE FORGETTING TIME will be available from Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio on February 2, 2016.