Grace can’t settle. She can’t shake the feeling that someone is missing.
You Must Remember This is an eloquent jumble of a family story, as experienced by Grace, an elderly woman with dementia trying to get her moorings in a worsening storm. It contemplates the perils of remembering and forgetting, making your own way in the world and how we seem bound to repeat the patterns of the past. Most profoundly it’s about sensing what it’s like to live on while your faculties dim, and about finding peace.
Review
You Must Remember This is a tender, heart-wrenching novel about memory, family, and ageing. This novel is short, beautifully written, and easy to digest — yet it will undoubtedly resonate for many readers who have loved or supported someone through dementia.
The novel follows Grace, an elderly widow living with memory decline. Told out of order, with only chapter numbers to indicate the true timeline, the story mirrors Grace’s own experience of memory: fractured, fluid, and disorienting. Sights and smells constantly pull her between decades — from the present day, where her daughter Liz struggles with the realities of Grace’s decline, back to her difficult childhood in the mid 20th century.
Wilson captures the nuances of Grace’s world with subtlety and empathy. In childhood flashbacks, we see her grappling with troubles no child should have to face: a distant, harsh mother with a drinking problem; a veteran father with a gambling problem; and the heavy burden of caring for her younger twin brothers through poverty. In the present, after a disorienting walk down a busy road, Grace is moved into a nursing home where she struggles to adjust and understand why she is there in the first place.
Although the subject matter is heavy, the novel is punctuated by moments of fierce love. Grace’s internal experience is deeply moving. Her daughter Liz’s grief and frustration is portrayed realistically, if at moments grating, while Grace’s granddaughter Claire provides welcome patience and kindness despite her few scenes.
As someone who finds books about dementia challenging to read, I was surprised by how quickly I devoured You Must Remember This. This is a poignant, bittersweet novel that will stay with you — particularly if you appreciate character-driven, reflective stories.
Thank you to Affirm Press who provided a copy of the novel in exchange for a review.
Review by Elise
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