Summary

The novel takes place on an unnamed island that is oppressed by a tyrannical government organization called the Memory Police. The Memory Police have the power to make things ‘disappear,’ meaning the denizens of the island lose the ability to recognize things that have ‘disappeared.’ The island appears to be largely cut off from the outside world. In Chapter 1, the novel’s narrator is a child. Her mother—a sculptor—tells her of things that have been disappeared, such as jewels and perfume. The mother has secretly kept and hidden some of these objects against the mandates of the MP. The narrator asks her mother how she (the mother) is able to remember things that the MP have erased from the islanders’ memories. The mother does not answer. In Chapter 2, the narrator is an adult, and both of her parents are deceased (although the...