The Weight of Memory

by Shawn Smucker

Book Overview

"Smucker crafts beautiful sentences and haunting characters that immerse readers in a world where anything is possible but not everything is real. Recommended for fans of Ted Dekker or Tosca Lee."--Library Journal

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When Paul Elias receives a terminal diagnosis, he leaves his physician's office in a fog. Only one thing is clear to him: if he is going to die, he must find someone to watch over his granddaughter, Pearl, who has been in his charge since her drug-addicted father disappeared. Paul decides to take her back to Nysa--both the place where he grew up and the place where he lost his beloved wife under strange circumstances forty years earlier.

But when he picks up Pearl from school, the little girl already seems to know of his plans, claiming a woman told her.

In Nysa, Paul reconnects with an old friend but is not prepared for the onslaught of memory. And when Pearl starts vanishing at night and returning with increasingly bizarre tales, Paul begins to question her sanity, his own views on death, and the nature of reality itself.

In this suspenseful and introspective story from award-winning author Shawn Smucker, the past and the present mingle like opposing breezes, teasing out the truth about life, death, and sacrifice.


"A resonant allegory about forgiveness and faith. Fans of James Rubart will want to take a look."--Publishers Weekly

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0800735315
• ISBN13: 9780800735319
• Release Date: July 2021
• Publisher: Fleming H. Revell Company
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

incredibly thought-provoking

"We can never trust ourselves, never know our true motives. There is always something deeper at work, something unseen pulling us along to hidden ends. We paddle where we think we want to go, but all along it's the hidden current that takes us." It's another lyrical and beautifully written novel by Shawn Smucker that addresses the everyday battle with grief and regret seeped in the past with its memories and fear of the unknown when facing our mortality in an unusual and memorable writing style. You cannot read this book in a rush, for every word penned is important and builds on each other to create the author's own brand of nostalgic and mysterious poetry, edged with suspense and sprinkled with hope. Truly the plot took me by surprise because I could not predict what will happen next. The first person narrative from Paul is raw and heart-wrenching as he tells the story in present tense like he's speaking to his grand-daughter. The flashbacks, still in Paul's voice, help to build his past in his hometown of Nysa without interrupting his narrative. This book is incredibly thought-provoking and will stay with you long after you've put the book down. I received the book from Revell and was under no obligation to post a positive comment. All opinions are solely my own.