He was surprised by how well he knew the house, how perfectly it fitted the hole in his memory.
Sam Taylor, The Amnesiac
A young man named James Purdue can't remember a chunk of his life, and he passes up the chance to continue his relationship with a beautiful woman in the Netherlands to return to England to try to reclaim that part of his past. His pursuit of his past continues even after it becomes clear that his past might be best left forgotten. He knows, in part because of the way people treat him, that he must have done something terribly wrong, but he can't stop searching for answers.
This sounds like a more conventional psychological thriller, but Taylor has bigger ideas. He aims for art through surrealism and mystery that makes little sense in the real world. For example, some anonymous person hires James to remodel a house that seems vaguely familiar to him. Inside this house, sometimes hidden behind wallpaper, he finds clues to the forgotten part of his life. Meanwhile the omniscient narrator sometimes brings himself into the story with lines like, "Watching him, I couldn't help laughing." When this narrator finally reveals who he is, it only adds to the weirdness.
Taylor gives us some wonderful moments and some beautiful lines worth rereading. With a bit more realism amid all the surrealism, his novel might be a success.
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