REVIEW: The Amnesiac by Sam Taylor

The back cover of the US edition of The Amnesiac, which has just been published for the first time in the US by Penguin, carries a glowing review from a British newspaper describing the novel as "elusive".

As I started reading Sam Taylor's book, I couldn't help but wondering what the critic meant because The Amnesiac begins in deceptively simple fashion. We are introduced to James Purdew, a young British man recuperating in his Amsterdam flat after breaking an ankle tripping up the stairs.

Anyone who has spent along time couped up with an incapacitating illness or injury will understand the crushing boredom and loneliness described and the ever more desperate strategies for alleviating them. This was a powerful, and for me evocative piece of writing, and I could understand why in the midst of this he turns his back on what seems like the perfect life with his girlfriend Ingrid despite not having any alternative to turn to.

But once this phase is over and Purdew has decided to head back to the English city - which is unnamed for some unfathomable reason - where he attended university to attempt to piece together three lost years of his life, the elusiveness begins to find its way in.

It is true that a lot of the books I read and review on here are relatively straightforward: someone is killed, someone else, often while dealing with his or her own problems, sets out to solve the murder. It is possible that this simple formula has put part of my brain to sleep and that the dozing lobe is the part I needed to appreciate fully the complexities of The Amnesiac.

Because while part of me thoroughly enjoyed The Amnesiac and found it rubber-neck compelling, another part was utterly bewildered by it. And what was most interesting about it was that its main strengths were also its weaknesses.

Taylor is possessed of an extraordinary imagination and the courage to give it free reign. His story covers two centuries and several other parallel realities inhabited by Purdew's wandering and sick mind as well as a cast of characters clearly linked but divided by time and narrative. But a book is effectively a collaboration between writer and reader, and too often Taylor's imagination was just too much for mine, and despite always having what I felt was a good handle on what was going on I became lost in the maze of detail.

Similarly Taylor's willingness to experiment with narrative structure was refreshing, but felt overdone.

In fact "overdone" probably just about sums up how I felt about this book. It was slightly too long, a little over-complicated, perhaps a little too clever-clever for its own good.

Nonetheless I am pleased I read it. It was a challenge, and that's a good thing, and there was as much to like about it as dislike. It was also a book I thought about a lot while not reading it and in particular just how difficult a place the world must be for those suffering from mental illness - amnesia, Alzheimer's: frightening, disorienting, bewildering - but also how even the most sound-seeming minds can play tricks on their owners.