The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah: book review

The Book of Memory (2015) is narrated by a young albino woman called Memory. She is accused of murdering her boss, Lloyd Hendricks. She has been on death row in the local prison at Chikurubi, Zimbabwe, for the past two years.

Vernah Sithole, her lawyer in Zimbabwe, suggests that Memory writes down her account of the incident for American journalist Melinda Carter. Being an albino, and different from everyone else – for she looks white – her parents sold her to Lloyd, a white man, when she was nine years old. And that’s the beginning of her side of the events.

Memory’s version of events is told in three parts: the first is of her childhood and family home with her parents and two sisters – Joyi and Mobhi – as well  as her current life in prison; the second is about her life with Lloyd, ‘’a Rhodesian eccentric’’ in his mansion called Summer Madness; and the last part ends with her waiting in prison, concluding her account: even in the bleakest times, there is hope. 

Memory says, ‘’I am writing to keep myself alive’’ but is her account truthful? Not only is this novel about the fallibility or veracity of memory, but it is also about fate and free will, love and loss, difference and indifference, and guilt and forgiveness.

There is a long preamble before Memory (on page 214) talks about that day in November that Lloyd died, where she describes everything from her first waking moments. And then the gaps form in her memory of the evening hours. Even as Memory writes, she too is realising some truths. The reader never knows what the lawyer or journalist makes of her account, but will it evoke sympathy or cynicism, will it expose facts and fantasies? Credible or coincidental, fact or fallacy, it is nevertheless an interesting read.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).