The Hero of This Book

The unnamed narrator of this story is on a trip to London to heal after the death of her beloved mother 10 months prior. The writer never wrote about her parents while they were alive because “they were odd and extraordinarily private.” Now she is careful to say that she is not writing a memoir, despite spending much of her time traveling down memory lane. McCracken’s (The Souvenir Museum) introspective, thoughtful novel bends the space between fiction and memoir, resulting in a creation that is brilliant, if occasionally confusing. The writer in this novel resembles McCracken in many ways, and the parents sound a lot like her actual parents. In particular, the mother has a zest for life and ignores her physical limitations, despite having mobility issues and using canes to walk since youth. McCracken reads the audio, allowing listeners to hear her working through her grief as she talks of touching moments and remembers the slightly dysfunctional aspects of her upbringing.