Forget Much?

By Mr. Richard M Shatzman

Originally conceived to be about lost memories Forget Much? grew to become as much a story of remembering as forgetting. With sixty three years of details, including a few intimidating ones around his birth, Isaac Ben Abraham exposes ideas and conversations that not only entertain but also enlighten. And when these lessons are not made available through his work as a U.S. government food scientist, the improbable characters he encounters on three benchmark days in 1984, 1999 and 2014 provide the missing and necessary ingredients.'For I am Isaac, ' sounds biblical for a book's opening. But it is not. It is the beginning to a world made of misdirection, and the first one arrives in the very next line, a half crazed extremely crude and somewhat bitter self-introduction. At the age of thirty three the narrator is surrounded by his best high school friends. The six of them have gathered for an evening of poker in one of their grander yet also their ugliest suburban basement, where Isaac is often joined by the least likely of his crew for screwing up the singing of the music defining the variety of their very different lives. Between tunes he floats himself in and out of their conversations, and at one point daydreams he had found god wearing a brand new pair of LL Bean boots, on the ground. Eventually Isaac hears his god offering him a playlist that he summarily rejects. But most of his time requires remaining attuned to his friends and their dialogs, often equal to Isaac's fantasies to take him on unexpected side trips to visit heroes like Beowulf, and places resembling the moon of Endor, and occasionally even find normal people inside normal destinations.In the switch from Daylight Savings Time Isaac's 1999 narrative finds its inspiration. His discovery is both a rotten gift, sometimes subtle but often not, and a forecast for his most unusual workday. Arriving at his Lab an hour early sets the pace for a ten hour stretch that would be hard if not impossible to forget. Still, as slices of normalcy try their best to intervene it is in lengthy real dialogs with co-workers where things get delightfully strange. Among the endless items added onto his 'to do' list are visits to western art and philosophy and a younger co-worker's fantasy requesting UN Peacekeepers. And the UN Peacekeepers, they are one of his more normal destinies.In the beginning of Isaac's third benchmark day is another reference to god. This one though comes from his wife Roth. Together at home they are joined by the two dogs they've rescued, and for the briefest of whiles Picasso's ghost stoned past Cubism, all while inner and outer dialogs continue to be surrounded by the music Isaac's life experienced. There are songs for him to continue to wrap himself around and they are an eclectic enough mix to include an edited grade school's 'She'll be coming 'round the mountain, ' Nat Adderly's hard bop jazz classic 'Work Song, ' and the Beatles 'All You Need is Love.' Even the Rolling Stones are asked to play 'Sympathy for the Devil, ' in part to balance Isaac's overly abundant preoccupation with his god, the one he admiringly notes has taken drawing classes at Michelangelo's in town school. But still a man's life story cannot really be told when all it encompasses is a mere three days. And that is true no matter how significant those days are, even when they are twice separated, and each time by fifteen seminal years. But something close to a more complete autobiography can be extrapolated through memories of such vitality that they in turn compose events which will not be so easily forgotten. And within them are the unwitting, always spontaneous lessons Isaac Ben Abraham stumbles onto, or occasionally consciously creates, for taking into his future. When for once he will not be thinking about food.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08W7SQNDV
• ISBN13: 9798707517914
• Release Date: February 2021
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"