The Memory of Love, by Aminatta Forna, Atlantic Monthly Press 464 pp.
Years ago Aminatta Forna earned acclaim for “The Devil That Danced on the Water,” a memoir about her investigation of her activist father’s execution. She returns to contemporary Sierra Leone in her newest book, The Memory of Love.
Set in the country’s capital post-civil war, the novel centers around three men: Adrian Lockhart, a British psychologist longing to help the traumatized but increasingly aware that he can’t; his patient, Elias Cole, a former academic with a haunting confession to share; and Kai Mansaray, a native Sierra Leonean and brilliant orthopedic surgeon who befriends Lockhart. In alternating points of view, the men tell their stories, seamlessly transitioning between past and present. All three recall memories of love and loss. It is not clear right away that their tales are connected through one woman.
Forna, a former BBC journalist and documentarian, has seen the cruelties of the war-ravaged West African country first-hand, and has devoted a career to chronicling them. In careful, precise prose, Forna makes even the seemingly commonplace details meaningful. These particulars speak to overarching themes of human experience: devotion, betrayal, and resilience.
