Amnesia Clinic

By James Scudamore

Book Overview

Anti, a quiet English boy living in Quito, Ecuador, strikes up a friendship with flamboyant classmate Fabi n, who is everything Anti isn't: handsome, athletic and popular. What's more, he lives with his rakish Uncle Suarez, while Anti is stuck in the dull ex-pat world inhabited by his parents.

Suarez, a storyteller par excellence, infects the boys with his passion for outlandish tales, and before long their relationship becomes one conducted entirely through the telling of tales. One subject, however, is taboo: Fabi n's parents. But when details surrounding their disappearance begin to emerge, Anti decides to console his friend with a story suggesting that Fabi n's mother may be living at a bizarre hospital on the coast for patients with memory loss. With confused emotions and reality losing its tenuous grip, the boys embark on a quixotic voyage across Ecuador in search of an 'Amnesia Clinic' that may, or may not exist.

The Amnesia Clinic won the Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0099494221
• ISBN13: 9780099494225
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.7" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Intriguing Effort!

Although this book gets off to a slow & often complicated start...it really is worth pursuing. The author is very talented at given different spins on each story to unravel an even more complex web of truth. Fascinating details are included...not least of which includes shrunken heads & decomposing whales. Quite an adventure.