The following version of this novel was used in the creation of this study guide: Shepherd, Peng. The Book of M. William Morrow. 2018. First Hardcover Edition.

Part One opens with Ory and his wife Max struggling to survive after an event called the Forgetting destroyed society. Whenever someone loses their shadow, they also lose their memories, and whatever they believe is true becomes real. Since Max lost her shadow one week prior, Ory is reluctant to leave her, even to scavenge for food. When he does, he meets a group composed mostly of shadowless led by a shadowed woman named Ursula. She tells him that the strange names, such as ‘The One with a Middle but No Beginning’ correlate to something happening in New Orleans. While Ory believes it is foolish to leave the safety of the resort, his mind changes when he discovers that Max is gone and likely forgot him.

In Part Two, the start of the Forgetting is expanded through the story of Naz, a woman who moved to Boston from the middle east after she was disowned by her mother. The first shadowless, a man named Haru Joshi, captivated the world until the amnesia set in. As the Forgetting spread around the world, society eventually collapsed. Naz remains trapped in Boston until her sister, Rojan, arrives and the two eventually end up joining a group in D.C. At the same time, Ory and Max survived with fellow wedding guests at a resort until only they were left.

In the present day, it is revealed that Max left before she lost her memories and is recording her thoughts and experiences with a recorder Ory gave her. While Ory leaves for D.C because he was certain she would go to their old home there (which Max admits was her first thought), Max decides to join Ursula’s group to New Orleans, determined to make a new memory and possibly find a cure before she loses herself. On the way, however, they are captured by a cult known as Transcendence that believes that the magic shadowless possess is more valuable than the memories one loses. The group manages to escape, but not without losing a couple of members and, eventually, their memories of where they were going in the first place, relying on a painting one of the lost members once made to remind them.

Then, sections titled “The One Who Gathers” follows the story of the amnesiac man who suffers from retrograde amnesia after a car accident. While he met Hemu, the amnesiac did save all of Hemu’s research on the shared memories of elephants. This allows him to establish a clinic in New Orleans with the help of Dr. Zadeh. However, after Dr. Zadeh is killed and the amnesiac man is blinded in a storm, he feels a strange power that he cannot explain, but believes they can stop the incoming hurricane.

Meanwhile, Ory meets his brother-in-law, Imanuel, in D.C. and learns he is leading an army against the Reds; a group of shadowless led by the mysterious Red King. Their goal is to gather as many books as they can to take to New Orleans, and Imanuel is desperate to retrieve the poetry book Paul published before he lost his shadows and his memories. Eventually, it is revealed that the Red King is Paul, but twisted by misremembering who he was. Imanuel is killed by Paul while retrieving the book, but Ory manages to shoot Paul before he and the rest of Imanuel’s army escape with all the books they have. However, the Reds - with help from Transcendence - follow them.

In Part IV, Ory and the others learn about Transcendence and continue on to New Orleans to warn whoever is there. Once they arrive, they are transfixed by the beautiful city that The One Who Gathers and his shadow, Gajarajan created, before realizing that Malik’s daughter, Vienna, lost her shadow. As she begins to lose her memories, she chooses to help seven other shadowless defend New Orleans by using their powers of misremembering in exchange for a new shadow from Gajarajan. The Eight successfully protect the people and the city while using memories of the hurricane to kill the cultists.

Days later, Gajarajan realizes that he remade the shadow of Ory’s wife, Max, using the recordings she made during their journey. Unfortunately, those memories were tied to the body of Ursula, and the bodies of Max and the other travelers were never found.

In Part V, the woman with Max’s memories struggles to find a purpose and overcome her feelings for Ory as he does not see her as his wife. Eventually, she decides to take the name M and travels with Malik to bring more people to New Orleans, using her as proof of Gajarajan’s success. Meanwhile, she hopes that Ory can work with Gajarajan to create shadows using books rather than old memories so that no one else will experience the pain that she and Ory have.