You Must Remember This

by Sean Wilson

A haunting and beautifully observed story of memory, ageing, and identity, where the lines between past and present are blurred.

SHORTLISTED, THE AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR FICTION AWARD 2026
SHORTLISTED, MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD 2026

Grace can't settle. She can't shake the feeling that someone is missing.

You Must Remember This is an eloquent jumble of a family story, as experienced by Grace, an elderly woman with dementia trying to get her moorings in a worsening storm. It contemplates the perils of remembering and forgetting, making your own way in the world and how we seem bound to repeat the patterns of the past. Most profoundly it's about sensing what it's like to live on while your faculties dim, and about finding peace.

'A tender portrait of old age and the slippages of memory.’ AMANDA LOHREY

‘Lyrical and beautifully conceived. A sensitive and heartbreaking insight into the devastating impact of dementia on the sufferers and those who care for them.’ MICHAEL BRISSENDEN

Genres: Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Fiction

152 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2025

About the author

Sean Wilson is a writer from Perth, now based in Melbourne. His short stories have been published in Australia and internationally, including in Island, The Big Issue and Narrative, and he was shortlisted for the Patrick White Playwrights Award by Sydney Theatre Company. His debut novel is Gemini Falls.

Reviews

[Jodi (on semi-hiatus)]

A very interesting novel looking at the early effects of dementia, on those who suffer with it and on their family members.

In Grace’s case, she’d been living alone for years, since her husband passed away. Her family didn’t realise how extensive her memory loss had gotten. Grace could hide it well, though not on purpose. Her daughter simply didn’t take the time to sit with her, to try to understand what she was saying. By the time her daughter was aware, Grace had been picked up by police, found wandering the streets, miles from home, in the middle of the night. The next day, her daughter picked her up and checked her into a Nursing Home. But Grace didn’t understand. “But I told you about it on the phone”, her daughter, Liz, said impatiently. “Don’t you remember?” 🤨 ?? Really Liz???😒

My interest in the novel began as soon as I started reading and noticed the unusual placement of chapters. I had to check the Table of Contents to make sure what I was seeing was right. Then I could see that the first ten chapters, listed in their order of appearance, were: Chapters 10, 7, 11, 12, 8, 1, 16, 2, 13, 21—placed randomly, just as Grace’s memories were randomly pieced together.

This short sequence from a favourite childhood classic illustrates the mind of some dementia sufferers well:

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today.” squeaked Piglet.
“My favourite day.” said Pooh.

I highly recommend this novel, especially to those who are new to this debilitating situation. It may help to ease you into it and offer you some insight into the mind of your aging relative.

3.5 “Today’s–moments–are–tomorrow’s–memories” stars ⭐⭐⭐

[Andrea]

This is likely to be one of my most memorable reads of 2025.

It's a simple story: Grace has dementia, and when she can no longer safely live in her own home, her daughter Liz puts her into aged/nursing care. We learn that Grace had a difficult childhood with a cruel, alcoholic mother and a damaged father, who often left her to care for the younger twin boys in a home with not enough food or warmth, or even one time, with no electricity. Luckily for Grace, she later met Howard and they had a happy marriage and family life until Howard passed away. Then Grace's memory began to betray her.

The key to it is that the story is told via Grace's own memories of the past (detailed) and perspective of the present (fuzzy). And it's far from linear. While this is by no means a new way of storytelling, the way that Sean Wilson does it is quite genius. There are no timestamps, only chapter numbers to guide the reader. It begins at Chapter 10 (yes, like others, I cracked the spine and thought I'd bought a defective copy!), then randomly goes back and forth in time. It's discombobulating, but I think it must be a really effective way to bring the reader inside Grace's brain and memories as she falls further into her illness.

I found this story to be achingly moving and really respectful of those who suffer from this insidious disease. I knew nothing about You Must Remember This when it caught my eye at a local bookshop, and I'm just so glad I picked it up and took a chance. Highly recommended.

[EmG ReadsDaily]

Beautifully evocative exploration of memory loss and ageing, cleverly written to immerse the reader within the confusion, befuddlement and disorientation.

This is a quick, yet thought-provoking story.

[George]

An interestingly narrated novel about Grace, an elderly woman who has dementia. Grace has a daughter, Liz, and a granddaughter. Grace struggles to remember basic information and is put into a retirement home. A lot of the story is told from Grace’s perspective. The reader sees Grace’s fuzzy perspective of reality. Sometimes Grace recalls past events in her life. Her mother is a self centered woman who drinks to excess. Her father is a weak, sad man who does little, other than gamble, drink and sit on the couch watching television. Grace finds herself doing most of the work around the house and looks after her younger twins. Grace is poorly treated by her mother, who fails to acknowledge the help Grace does around the house.

A thought provoking, very well written, sad novel. Grace does not recognize her daughter Liz on a number of occasions.

This book is shortlisted for the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

[Sarah Charleson]

Thanks to Affirm Press for this ARC.
This was so jarring and frustrating to read, all the chapters jumbled - but that’s the point.
This was like living in the mind of an elderly person living with dementia, and this was a real eye opener on how scary that could be

[Melinda Nankivell]

What a novel! The premise is simple - when Grace, living alone, is found wandering around the street in the middle of the night, her daughter Liz decides it’s time to put Grace into a nursing home, as her dementia has now gotten to an unsafe level.

This is a wonderful book exploring memory, family, and the impacts of dementia. Sometimes the way Liz treats her mum seems so cold but these flaws in character help to convey the reality. As my own grandmother’s mind deteriorated I reflected on how this disease seemed in some ways to be harder for the family.

This is short but beautiful. I loved that the numbered chapters are out of order. This wasn’t confusing and instead was a great representation of a shuffled memory - how a smell or sound can trigger a vivid memory.

Very moving and relatable.

[Craig and Phil]

Big thanks to Affirm Press for sending us a copy to read and review.
Dementia is one of the evils that lurk and claim its victims.
The battle of memory loss, connecting the dots to make sense of the present and the cruelty of being trapped in a body where a grey haze dominates.
Life is full of chapters and Grace assorts them the best way she can to reclaim some of her timeline.
The jumbled array of chapter numbers do set the scene and I suspect most will scramble to make sure starting at chapter 10 was not an error.
Grace has dementia and can no longer live at home.
Her daughter places her in a care home to live out her days in a safe and sound environment.
Fragments of her past float back and replenish her with both good and sad memories.
Triggers like sights, smells and sounds act as handrails to the brain and allow the passage to the past.
A short but poignant story that opens the curtains on a dilemma many families suffer.
The frustration and helplessness of the sufferer is felt and the content may be useful for anyone experiencing the early onset of this cruel condition.

[Hanna El Shorbagy]

3.5 ⭐️ a really imaginative depiction of life with dementia. written in such an interesting way, this will stick with me for a while. super quick read also

[Tania]

Clever in such a subtle way. The mixed up chapters give a sense of all life events being lived at the same time - a sense of confusion as to where we are in time, and what preceded or followed. The snap backs from reverie to reality made disorientation palpable. Can’t praise this highly enough. A slim book with the heft of a tome.

[Gem Shackleton]

Beautiful, devastating. The structure of this novel is quite unique and so wonderfully paced, I was totally swept up in it.

[Sammy thebookninja_]

This book offers an intimate and deeply moving glimpse into what it’s like to live with dementia. The narrative itself is simple, yet its brilliance lies in how eloquently it’s written.
One of the most effective aspects of the book is the way the author plays with chapter order. The jumbled structure is a simple yet powerful way to reflect the muddled nature of memory, where the present and past continuously blur together. It made me truly feel what it might be like to live in that state—where moments slip away just as quickly as they surface.
While I thought the writing was stunning, this is more of a reflective and emotional read rather than a plot-driven or traditionally entertaining book. It’s a story that lingers in your mind, not because of what happens, but because of how it makes you feel.

[Seán Coireall M.]

I can’t remember a single thing about You Must Remember This, which is either a devastating review or a medical diagnosis. This year’s Miles Franklin Prize is shaping up to be a masterclass in mediocrity.

[Anabela]

This is the story of Grace, an eldery woman with dementia and the impact her condition has on her everyday
life and that of her loved ones. What an incredible book!

When I first turned to page one I thought something was wrong. I went back and forth a few times to confirm the chapter numbers. You see, much like the thoughts of a person with dementia, this story is not linear, it’s fragmented, chapters aren’t in sequence. It’s jarring but it’s effective, it’s powerful and gripping. This book is written in such a way as to give us a glimpse into what it’s like to live with dementia, the struggles as your faculties evade you, the jumbled thoughts, the difficulties in recognising your loved ones and navigating everyday life.

The writing is eloquent, poetic, evoking strong emotions.

Thank you so much to Affirm Press for sending me this ARC and for putting Sean Wilson in my reading life. This
book will be released on 28th January 2025 and I urge you to pick it up and read it.

[Janine]

You Must Remember This is written from experience of child with a parent with Alzheimers- you can tell. The chapters are not in chronological order, with the book starting with Chapter 10 as Grace is heading along a busy road at night. This prompts her daughter Liz to put her into aged care, where she is bewildered by the presence of strangers, including her daughter. Memories come fleetingly, before she can put them into words.

As she struggles to find a firm footing for her memories, she goes back to her childhood with her alcoholic parents. Her father had been in the war and her mother worked as a nurse, but with such an alcohol problem you wonder how she held down a job. She met her husband Howard when she was working in an office although she didn't remember that he had since died. She loved him all her life. These chapters are interspersed between the present day chapters, in no particular order.

The book is set in Western Australia and it 'feels' Australian. Wilson has a lovely turn of phrase: he describes an old man as having "cheeks like billiard balls" (p. 33) and when someone coughs, they make a sound "like an empty spray can" (p. 78).

This is only a small book - at 169 pages it's a novella really- but it rings with authenticity. It was short-listed for the Miles Franklin but I don't know if it has the heft to be a winner (and it didn't). But it is sad, tender and you just know that it's absolutely true.

[Gabriela Bourke]

I stopped reading this toward the end, not because it’s not a beautiful little book (it is) but due to my own feelings of grief and pain from seeing my father pass away after battling dementia earlier this year. Sometimes it’s healing to read about other people having the same painful experience, sometimes it just hurts.

[Amanda]

3.5 stars, rounded up. Audiobook. This was a really interesting perspective - told in a non-linear format by a woman who is experiencing dementia. It prompted me to think a lot about what might be going on the inside, behind the confusing and frustrating things outsiders see.

[Trish Booth]

3.5 ⭐️

Trippy with the mixed chapters, hard to follow what was going as a result. Although that was also the intention of the book to imitate a snippet of what it’s like to live with dementia.

[Mark]

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A beautiful, short and devastating window into the mind of someone who is suffering from dementia.

Grace reminded me a lot of my own Nonna, who often said her dementia felt like travelling through a fog and she didn’t know where to go.

There was the painful memory of your loved one, who played a big part in raising you, no longer remembering who you are.

When she passed, I always imagined that the fog cleared, and my Nonno was there, waiting for her.

[Hannah Trott]

Oh, this one is special

[Talia.xca]

Beautifully written and interestingly structured.

[Matilda H]

This was a really interesting novel told from the perspective of a woman as her dementia progresses. The chapter numbers are shuffled around to further portray the feeling of confusion in her mind. A smart, innovative, and well-written book.

[Audiobook, 3.5 ☆]

[Catherine]

Just beautiful.

[William Griffith]

Genuinely the toughest read I've ever had. Beautifully crafted and completely gut-wrenching.

[Rhonda]

A beautiful book. I read this in two sittings overall though the world it took me into in the first pages was disorientating enough to make it exhausting however I was snagged so returned and when I went back to it, forewarned, the remaining pages opened its world to me more easily. Anyone with a loved one going through the stages of dementia should read it. Its a mix of past present and future not only of Grace, the main character, but also her family, both birth family and later her own. Its a relatively small book but its 169 pages pack in a lot.

[Cass Moriarty]

Sean Wilson’s second novel, YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS (Affirm Press 2025) is a slim, hardback, literary meditation on aging, memory and family. Very different to his first novel (a remarkable historical crime thriller), it is nevertheless written in the same beautiful, lyrical prose, with evocative description that immerses the senses, and a warm and tender exploration of the main character, Grace, an older lady who ‘can’t settle’ and feels that there is ‘someone missing’.

If you love the writing of Amanda Lohrey, Helen Garner, Catherine de Saint Phalle and Elizabeth Strout, this is the novel for you. It reminded me very much of the 2020 movie, The Father, which starred Anthony Hopkins as a man with dementia, and Olivia Colman as his devoted daughter. For Grace in this book (as for the father in the movie), dementia and memory loss have faded the colour and texture from daily life, as she struggles to orientate herself in her house, her family, her life. Her recollections from her history – from her childhood, from her life as a young woman, from her experiences as a mother, from her unwanted admittance to a nursing home – are all confused and mixed up together in one big melting pot of smells, sounds, colours, emotions, feelings, desires and sadnesses. She has trouble telling what is real and what is imagined or remembered; what is now and what is from her past. The result is devastating not only for her, but for those who care for her.

As with the movie The Father (which I can also highly recommend), the audience or reader is immersed in the experience and sees everything from Grace’s perspective. The sense of muddling and befuddlement, the memories just out of reach, the moment of clarity followed by confusion, the fear that she can’t remember particular people or events, the annoyance that others are treating her differently, the certainty that she is in a particular place or time, shifted quickly to uncertainty even about who she is and what time of her life she inhabits. All of this is conveyed with such warmth, tenderness, compassion, curiosity, empathy and heart.

Wilson has cleverly shuffled the chapters in the book to help recreate this feeling of being untethered and confused. At first, I didn’t even notice that the book begins with Chapter 10. It wasn’t until I reached Chapter One (quite a few chapters in) that I realised that Wilson had represented Grace’s shifting memory with this clever and unusual format. It reads perfectly well as it is – with Grace in the present day, then remembering her childhood, then herself as a young bride, then back to now – but after reading the final pages, I wanted to begin again at Chapter One and sort through the book to read all the chapters in their chronological order. It is a simple but very effective device to replicate the mind of someone with dementia – scenes coming in and out of focus, shadows chasing rainbows, menacing feelings stronger than the actual memory of traumatic events, love and comfort dancing lightly across her mind as she catches glimpses of the good parts of her previous life.

Grace’s middle-aged lawyer daughter, Liv, and her young adult granddaughter, Claire, are as dear to her as she is to them, but there is frustration, disappointment and sorrow from all sides as Grace has lost the sense of herself and struggles sometimes to place them. ‘You must remember this’ is an oft-quoted refrain, but Grace’s mind is pernickety. She can clearly recall some events but others not at all, and those she does remember are mixed up together in a sometimes vivid, sometimes faded emotional soup.

YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS explores themes of dementia, aging, memory loss, family dynamics, relationships, trauma, alcohol abuse and child neglect, and is a thoughtful meditation on society’s treatment of the aged, the ways in which we convince ourselves that we are fine, and the thin and fragile meniscus between cogent adulthood and the almost inevitable slippage into frailty and infirmity. It is a sad yet stunningly exquisite account of a life lived, loves lost, family mourned and the memories that stay with us but perhaps take on a different meaning.

[Lisa]

You Must Remember This is the second novel of Sean Wilson, a writer from Perth, now based in Melbourne.  Derived from the author's experience witnessing his grandmother's decline into dementia, it is a deeply heartfelt meditation on ageing and memory.

Written from the confused perspective of Grace, the novel begins with Chapter 10, portraying her chaotic thoughts in a non-linear way.  Episodes in the present feature her daughter Liz, who struggles to navigate the loss of her mother's capacities, apparently without having much guidance about how to communicate with her.  Where the staff at the aged care home go along with Grace rather than confront her when she has lost her grip on reality, Liz can't always control her irritation and distress, confusing Grace even more.  But like many, Liz is doing her best, paying for the best of care that's available and visiting regularly even though it's a dispiriting experience.  She's one of the so-called 'sandwich' generation, dealing with a stormy relationship with her own daughter while losing the emotional support that a grandmother might have been able to provide.

As the chapters progress, Grace's past life is revealed through her memories.  She had a terrible childhood, at the mercy of an alcoholic mother called Annie and a feckless father called Des.  She was often left to fend for herself and to care for her twin brothers, trying to keep them quiet when they screamed in hunger because no one had provided food or money to buy some.  An opportunistic policeman flirts with Annie while waiting for his moment with fifteen-year-old Grace, and it is just luck and good timing that Annie comes home from the pub in time to throw him out of the house.  And although there are good memories of her escape from her parents and falling in love with her husband Howard,  it seems terribly sad that in her confusion there are not more happy memories of her time with him.

There are many different kinds of dementia but all of them involve a deterioration of mental faculties in some way.  As advances in medicine progress so that people live longer, most of us will encounter this distressing condition at some stage.  In my experience, getting educated about it was crucial to being able to support my father in the last phase of his life.  I completed the Understanding Dementia MOOC offered by the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania, and I also learned some helpful strategies for communication at a day-long workshop at Dementia Australia, then known as Alzheimer's Australia.  These also turned out to be helpful when my MIL succumbed to Alzheimer's.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/02/17/y...

[Mell Meyer]

“The things she remembers seem to find her more than she finds them. They come to her in pieces, out of order, like pages cut from a book and scattered in the wind.”

Thanks to Affirm Press for providing me with an ARC of You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson. This short read was just what I needed to ease back into reading after the holidays, and it left a lasting impression.

The novel tells the story of Grace, an elderly woman with dementia, as she struggles to find her bearings in a world that feels increasingly unfamiliar. The narrative is fragmented, with chapters out of sequence, reflecting Grace’s disoriented mind. This structure might seem confusing at first, but it brilliantly mirrors the experience of living with dementia, drawing readers into Grace’s reality.

On a personal level, this book was profoundly relatable. My own grandmother has been living with dementia for the past ten years, and I’ve witnessed her gradual decline and the challenges of placing her in a care home. Sean Wilson’s portrayal of Grace’s journey was both heartbreaking and eye-opening, resonating deeply with my experiences.

Wilson’s writing is a standout feature of the book. His poetic prose captures the beauty and tragedy of memory and loss, making this confronting story feel tender and intimate. His ability to evoke such powerful emotions through his words has left me eager to explore more of his work.

You Must Remember This is not just a story about dementia; it’s a meditation on memory, identity, and finding peace amid chaos. The dedication to the author’s grandmother adds a deeply personal touch, making the book even more poignant.

This beautiful, poetic, and confronting novel will be published on January 28th, 2025, in a gorgeous hardback edition. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a moving exploration of life with dementia and the complexities of memory.

[Jesse]

As a rule, I generally dislike stories which focus on family (books about toxic relationships, messy divorces, and making poor life choices? No thanks, if I want to relive my dysfunctional childhood I’ll go talk to my therapist) but this one was more character-driven than anything else. The main character, Grace, is slowly succumbing to dementia, and the book is told from her perspective from the mild stages of the disease (in her own home, struggling to keep track of her daily routine/working memory) to the moderate stages (living with her daughter) to the late stages (in a residential care home, having difficulty walking and no longer remembering her family). As is typical of the disease, Grace spends more time in the past than present, remembering vivid moments from her childhood but struggling to recall her daughter’s name. The glimpses into Grace’s past help us develop a nuanced understanding of Grace’s current relationships, and there’s a strong echo down the generational line of the complexities of mother-daughter relationships.

The book presented a realistic but delicate perspective of someone with dementia — Wilson lovingly delineated Grace’s experience without overdramatising it or resorting to the more extreme symptoms of dementia. He explored the relationships between the characters with a gentle, subtle, empathetic approach — it’s sad that I have to say this, but the central characters were nearly all women (save for a couple of small roles) and they were so fleshed-out, so well-written, given so much care and dignity, that I double-checked the author thinking I must’ve misremembered — this book was surely written by a woman too. Fantastically complex characterisation from an empathetic and thoughtful storyteller.

[Tex]

“You Must Remember This” (YRMT) is a novella by Australian author Sean Wilson. It’s a heartfelt story exploring the loss of memories of the main character, Grace, caused by dementia.

The book is structured in a non-linear fashion with chapters 1 through 25 being out of order (the first chapter of the book is actually chapter 10 then chapters 7, 11, 12, 8, 1, and so on). This is a story device, similar to flashbacks, to show Grace‘s fragmenting memories and loss of those memories, almost lost in time between the past and the present, as her dementia slowly worsens. Whether this worked or not would be up to the individual reader. Personally this didn’t work for me as, if the chapters are read in numerical order, YMRT is just a tale about Grace from her early childhood through to her elderly years as a dementia suffer. Additionally the more present day chapters (chapters 8 thru 25) contained flashbacks and elements of confusion. Chapters 1 thru 7 were more backstory to provide context to the flashbacks.

Throughout the course of the book themes such as the erosion of self (including the blurring of time), the toll on individual family members including parental role reversal, and the loss of autonomy and feeling of displacement as a result of relocation into a care facility. Wilson explores these themes with sensitivity but only at a high level.

Focusing on an always difficult topic of dementia Wilson has delivered a quick and nuanced story but without breaking any new ground.

YMRT gets 3 solitary trees in a rock garden courtyard out of 5.

[Scatterbooker]

You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson is an innovative take on dementia. The chapters are presented in a mixed up order to represent what it must be like to have dementia.

The memories of Grace’s life are all jumbled up. She doesn’t quite know why her daughter is so concerned about her but we soon learn that she’s been found outside walking on the road in the middle of the night. She isn’t safe to live at home alone anymore so must move into a nursing home. Throughout the course of the novel we learn more about Grace and her past growing up with an abusive mother and an absent minded war hero father. We also learn how she feels about being in the nursing home and how she copes with the worsening loss of memory caused by her dementia. Sometimes she knows exactly who her daughter is and sometimes she has no idea who the worried looking woman in her room is.

I really enjoyed this novel. It was difficult to understand at first but it was as good of a representation of dementia as I’ve ever come across before. Memories come and go from all timelines and any time can be at the forefront of the mind. It made me think about my own grandfather who had dementia and would often talk about times in the past as if they were happening now.

I highly recommend You Must Remember This to anyone who wants to understand dementia and how it can affect people’s memories.

Many thanks to Affirm Press for sending me a review copy.