I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia
*Starred Review* It was a freaky accident. When a ceiling fan fell and struck her,  Su Meck received a gash in her forehead. She writes, “This was the day that my old life ended and my new life began.” The old Su was rebellious, the new Su was compliant after suffering not only a traumatic brain injury (TBI) but also complete retrograde amnesia as well as anterograde amnesia. Essentially, the accident wiped out her memories and prevented her from making new ones. Yet somehow she has stitched together an identity. Her first life began when she was born in 1965 and lasted until the spring of 1988, when the accident occurred. Everything after that consists of her second life, in which she depends on others to fill in the gaps with “anecdotes about who I was, what I did, and how I lived.” In this remarkable memoir, Meck chronicles her experiences as she learned to live in “a house full of strangers.” She discusses her marital troubles with great frankness as well as her frustration with herself, her family, and members of the medical community who did not take her injury seriously. Compelling and inspirational and, one hopes, an important impetus for ongoing brain research. --June Sawyers