The Business of Memory

In the current Information Age, "memory" is as likely to be a computer attribute as a human one. For this essay collection, the esteemed fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter invited twelve other writers to contemplate the externalization of what was once so deeply personal.

These pieces thus address a provocative range of topics: the recent explosion of interest in memoirs; the recovered-memory movement; America in the grip of an "amnesia plague"; the need for coherent stories of our past to help us organize our present; and forgetfulness—political, cultural, and literary—and the shame as well as the allure that it holds. Throughout, these fascinating writings illuminate the art of remembering at a time when memory has become a highly measurable commodity.

Contributors:

Charles Baxter
Richard Bausch
Karen Brennan
Bernard Cooper
Lydia Davis
Steve Erickson
Alvin Greenberg
Patricia Hampl
Margot Livesey
James A. McPherson
Victoria Morrow
Michael Ryan
Sylvia Watanabe

Praise

"For anyone involved in the art of introspection, this slim, articulate volume is unforgettable."—Kirkus Reviews

"Beautifully written essays that deftly explore the act of memoir-making and the art of storytelling. Ranging from tales of trauma and loss to quotidian and even banal events, they probe the tension between memory and forgetting and the mysteries of how we do each."—Library Journal

About the Author(s)

Charles Baxter

Charles Baxter is the author of several books, including Burning Down the House and Believers. He has been honored with an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Baxter lives in Ann Arbor and teaches at the University of Michigan.