SOURCE: "Izzy's Own Story," in The New York Times Book Review, March 6, 1994, p. 17.

[Polk is an educator. In the review below, he comments on Cooper's treatment of memory and characterization in Amnesia.]

Douglas Cooper's Amnesia, a dense, absorbing first novel, locates prominent features in the landscapes of mind and memory. The geography it maps out is rich and challenging, filled with provocations.

Without forewarning, Izzy Darlow begins reciting a strange narrative to an archival librarian who is to be married in four hours. At first, this seems to be Izzy's own story. But is it? "Something … makes it want to replicate, breed inwardly like cancer…. The smallest part of this tale contains within it, like a hologram, the beginning, middle and end."

The story's characters lurch after meaning; as they do, individuals become multiples and boundaries blur. Struggling to uncover a personal context, each character assumes the shadows...