Dislocations

September 15, 2022
In brief, plangent paragraphs, Molloy offer snapshots of the advancing loss of a friend "who is coming apart before my very eyes." Like flashes from a lighthouse, Argentinian writer Molloy offers sudden, extremely short glimpses and apercus--while also posing complicated questions--concerning her friend and longtime associate M.L., who is disappearing into incapacity and remoteness due to memory loss. Their relationship has spanned 45 years and includes professional connections, like collaboration on writing articles, as well as more profound links, such as sharing their particular language, "an at-home Spanish....A home from another era," words used by mothers or grandmothers, evocative of roots and recognition. "When talking to her I feel--or I felt--connected to a past that is not entirely illusory. And with a place: that of before." Molloy remembers M.L. as she used to be: "witty, ironic, snobby, critical, at times even malicious." Now tended by carers, M.L. has forgotten how to sign her name. She no longer remembers to avoid the foods she used to dislike and will soon forget how to eat, what to chew, when to swallow. She is using tactile memory--the feel of things--to replace the mental instinct. Not only tragic and valedictory, these fragments are also philosophical: "How does someone who remembers nothing speak in the first person? What is the location of that 'I', once the memory has come undone?" And on another level, there's an attempt to scrutinize and secure a relationship by one party as the other fades. What will happen when Molloy stops recording their interactions? Who will be abandoning whom? These are the final, unanswerable, guilty enquiries. Often chilling, occasionally banal, this ultrashort work fully inhabits its very specific terrain.

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Starred review from October 24, 2022
Argentine novelist and critic Molloy (Reading Dates) examines the nature and significance of memory in her gleaming English-language fiction debut. The narrator, S., takes up the role of “scribe” as she chronicles her longtime friend M.L.’s struggles with Alzheimer’s, noting how M.L.’s memory “keeps leaving pieces by the roadside.” In language by turns tender and probing, S. recounts almost daily visits to see M.L. Certain passages delve into the unpredictability of Alzheimer’s, such as when M.L. translates her caretaker L.’s notes on her symptoms for the English-speaking doctor, even though she herself is unable to recall or comprehend her own health problems. Other sections focus on the 45-year-long friendship between the two women, but as M.L.’s memory weakens, so does the history on which the friendship is founded, calling attention to the role of memory in reinforcing present ties. Heartbreaking and illuminating, the varied moments are beautifully rendered in short, noncontinuous chapters that mimic M.L.’s oft-fleeting mind, with its fractured recollections and random thoughts. A graceful study of memory, identity, and relationships, this is one to cherish.