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by Margaret Forster

"Susannah was apparently perfect, as the dead so often become": Margaret Forster's The Memory Box opens with the challenge which runs right through this book. How do you get to know the dead? How can the dead make you get to know them? In this case, by leaving a box of strange, and disconnected, objects through which a daughter, Catherine, learns to trace the contours of her mother's life and the depths of her own loss in never having known her. Susannah, her mother, died when Catherine was six months old; she is brought up, happily, by her father and step-mother. Only on their deaths does she open the "memory box" and enter into the everyday complexity (there's no melodrama here) of her family life. Was Susannah perfect? And why did her loving husband marry so soon after her death? What has Catherine missed in never having known her? Critically acclaimed for, amongst others, Lady's Maid and Mothers' Boys, Forster brings a keen, and unsentimental, eye to her (at times remarkably painful) topic. She is, also, the biographer of Daphne du Maurier, and Forster has taken on her legacy of menace and romance (think of Rebecca) in this intelligent, and compelling, novel. --Vicky Lebeau

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Modern, Novels

270 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Margaret Forster was educated at the Carlisle and County High School for Girls. From here she won an Open Scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford where in 1960 she was awarded an honours degree in History.

From 1963 Margaret Forster worked as a novelist, biographer and freelance literary critic, contributing regularly to book programmes on television, to Radio 4 and various newpapers and magazines.

Forster was married to the writer, journalist and broadcaster Hunter Davies. They lived in London. and in the Lake District. They had three children, Caitlin, Jake and Flora.

Reviews

[Mansuriah Hassan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Catherine's birth mother, Susannah died when she was just a young baby, leaving her with no memories of her at all. Her father remarries shortly afterwards and Catherine is only too happy to accept this new woman into her life as the only mother she will ever need. Throughout her childhood she manages to block out all references to Susannah and refuses to hear of any traits they may have in common when family members speak of her.

It is only years later when she stumbles across a box of objects Susannah had carefully selected for her when she knew she was dying that Catherine becomes intrigued. But what starts off as a hunt for clues about her dead mother and her past may end up revealing just as much about Catherine and her present. I was hoping that Catherine would discover something huge about Susannah. In this case I was totally disappointed.

The book is effectively Catherine's internal monologue about her feelings towards her mother, aunt, and stepmother, with no dialogue and virtually no interaction with other people. The character of Catherine, however, I feel is not one you immediately warm to. She comes across as spoiled and more than a little self-absorbed, something the first person narration only emphasizes in my opinion. The basic premise of this book is a great one, however, and you can't help but wonder what you would leave loved ones to help them get a sense of the person you really were.

I think one of the things the book captures really well is how elusive and fragile memories can be. Our sense of those that have died is an amalgamation of so many things - our memories of them if we have any but also what we have been told about them (good and bad) and our judgement of the way they lived their lives. At the end of the book you will be left wondering how well we can ever really know those that have gone before us.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping that Catherine would discover something huge about Susanna. In this case I was totally disappointed. I do not fancy people who seem to enjoy wallowing in their unhappy states, and clearly Catherine is one of such. she cuts off people who try to reach out to her (admits she has no friends to speak of, ignoring them till they take the hint and leave her alone), Edging out Tony, who clearly loves her, then digging deep into her to find fault with Charlotte, who she describes as having loved her unconditionally, so much that she did not feel that she missed Susanna. Not everything in life is to be analyzed and understood. Some things just are, and should be taken as such. Life is to be enjoyed, something Catherine needs to learn!

[MARY FRANCES SMART · Rating 1 out of 5]

Irritating read

Eventually I became irritated by her conjectures about people's motives. I thought her emotional responses unconvincing. I was intrigued at the start by her story but lost interest by the last 25% of the book.

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh dear, another disappointment picked up in the second-hand bookshop. This mines the same family history vein as several of Forster's other novels, but with a twist. Catherine's mother died when she was only six months old, and she was brought up by her father's second wife, whom she sees as her true mother. She resents attempts by her family to evoke the perfect, beautiful and talented mother that she never knew, but after the death of her parents when she is 31, she discovers a "memory box" left for her by her real mother, filled with objects that are presumably significant. She sets out to try to discover the meaning of these objects.

The trouble is that Catherine is a really antipathetic character. Rich enough not to need to work (she dabbles at being a freelance photographer) she comes across as a spoilt, self-centred brat. Living on her own, she appears to have no friends except for her even more obnoxious cousin Rory, and the whole book is effectively her internal monologue about her feelings towards her mother, aunt, and stepmother, with no dialogue and virtually no interaction with other people. It's true that Forster skilfully exposes Catherine's repressed anger towards her mother, and subtly shows the development and maturing of her character as she gradually comes to accept the reality of her mother's true character, but I just couldn't overcome the fact that I disliked her, and I found her musings about the objects essentially dull. I am sure though that if you had lost a parent at a tender age, you might find this book psychologically compelling, and I had the impression that Forster was using it as therapy to work through some repressed resentments of her own.

[Rebecca Duff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reasonably well-written book, lacking in a good plot though. Honestly this book was a bit of a disappointment, the whole book seemed to build up to something but that something never came...

[Emma Shubrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this book when I first read it many years ago. No dramatic twists and turns but a slow gentle unfolding of information carefully showing how complex relationships can be and how those relationships can change over time.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of Margaret Forster's books that I've tried reading; and it won't be the last.

Susannah died when her daughter Catherine was just six months old, but Catherine grows up happily with her father's second wife becoming her Mummy and never wants to find out about Susannah. However when Susannah knew she was dying she assembled a "memory box" for her baby daughter. Finally opening the box as an adult, having ignored it for years, Catherine tries to piece together this jigsaw of a legacy.

I really liked the premise, I thought it might be a bit of a manufactured sort of a story but it came over naturally enough. The objects in the box aren't obvious and I thought that Catherine could probably have taken a different path through them and found out different things about Susannah. Which isn't the point really, the point is that it was a good story and the characters were consistent.

The narrative reminded me of Barbara Vine a little, possibly because there is a quiet sense of impending doom in the "what will she find out about her mother?" question, but there isn't a hugely terrible hidden secret in here like there would be with Vine. It's more a case of the surprising things that are hidden in ordinary lives.

Enjoyable read, good writing, an interesting plot and great characters. I don't ask for much more than that from a book really!

[Theodora Gotsis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first Margaret Forster book I have come across and I have to admit that I was intrigued by the title immediately. The idea of stumbling across a box full of memories made for you from a mother who was near to death in your infancy works well as a hook. This is what Catherine Musgrave has to investigate after opening the box at 31. So she goes through the 11 items and tries to find logic behind them. What would they have meant to a mother she never knew. Will this hunt risk sullying the memory of her beloved stepmother Charlotte?

Even though this book is no lengthy tome, there are some sections that feel like drudgery. As interested as I was to find out the significance of the items, the journey to get there was too long and ponderous. The narrator is constantly smacking us over the head with her judgements. She's spoilt, over indulgent, intolerant, and extremely immature for a woman in her thirties.
I've read a book penned by a diagnosed sociopath who was less interested in themselves than this character is.

The writing style is good in the whole, but I wanted to keep screaming "get on with the story!!!!!!" I don't care what you want for breakfast!

As for the importance of the box in bringing a mother alive for Catherine? Well it was a little disappointed. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't longer. I wouldn't recommend this book to readers who enjoy story development over character development.

[Josephine Draper · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an interesting writing style Margaret Forster has. She takes an awfully long time to get to any point, but it's really engaging along the way.
I liked the way this book gradually revealed information about both the main character, her dead mother and some of the other characters in the book. The book, like Margaret Forster's writing, is a slow burn.

The characters were well described and empathetic. I loved the way Rory was a very selfish yet sensitive character. He was completely believable and I'm sure everyone knows someone like him.
Catherine though was slightly harder to get your head around, but that is I think the point of the book - the learning about people.

This is not a hard read but it is slow and not gratifying for someone who likes action. I did enjoy it and the concept of a box of memories from beyond the grave was well thought out, however I think it promised a little more in the way of reveals than it delivered. Clearly this is Margaret Forster's style and she has written it well, but I think the same premise could have been an action/mystery novel with another writer, and unfortunately the premise is so compelling that it disappoints in the execution.

[Heidi DB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book passed on to me, this time by my mother whom said I must read it if I enjoyed SJ Watson's "Before I Go To Sleep". A slim book of a short but complex and quite a boring tale. It could be better written in parts, as the storyline did drag on, it was just the secrecy of what was in that dam box that kept me there until the end. Basically Catherine is 6 months old when her mother dies of an undiscussed cause. Laboriously it runs through each item that her mother places in a keepsake box for when she is older so that Catherine can learn who her mother really was. Catherine's life is an upside down mess of emotions, struggling to have relationships because she does not know where she came from. Her father has the box but she has never been able to open it until when she is 31 and her father passes away she has to go and clear the house for selling and discovers the box hidden in the attic in opened. Each item sends her on a journey to discover how it relates to her mother.

The story does not feel realistic but is still worth a read if you like cryptic tales, nothing to rave about.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret Forster mi ha incuriosito molto grazie a questo blog, che ne parla molto anche se non c'è una recensione di The Memory Box. La trama di questo romanzo è molto interessante: la protagonista, Catherine, si ritrova costretta ad affrontare il ricordo della madre Susannah, morta quando lei aveva pochi mesi, grazie ad una scatola dei ricordi che quest'ultima aveva preparato negli ultimi mesi di vita, e che Catherine si era sempre rifiutata di vedere, preferendo considerare la matrigna Charlotte la sua vera e unica madre. Ora però che sia suo padre che Charlotte sono morti, e la loro casa deve essere velocemente svuotata per la vendita, Catherine ritrova la scatola in soffitta e non può far altro che portarla a casa con sé, finendo con l'esserne ossessionata, anche se gli oggetti che vi ritrova diventano l'occasione per un percorso di crescita e di scoperta.

http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.it/2...

[Ange · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret Forster is one of my favourite authors and "The memory box" seemed to have all the right ingredients for a gripping tale, however I found it slightly underwhelming. I think the main character, Catherine, was the problem. She wasn't at all compelled to unravel the mystery of her Mother's memory box, so it didn't quite make sense to me that she travelled all over the country to do so. Her heart wasn't in it at all, and actually she seemed fairly disinterested in everything, including friends, family and her ex- partner Tony. However the minor characters were engaging enough to keep me reading; and in the end there was a revelation of sorts, but it was revealed in a rather offhand manner, and the impact of this incident on Catherine's family was not explored. Nevertheless I think Margaret Forster's writing is of such a high quality that it can withstand a ho-hum plot; she is an author whose books I will always seek out.

[Kirsty Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd never heard of Margaret Foster before I came across this book at a charity sale but I'll definitely look up some more of her fiction in the future. She reminds me a lot of Margaret Atwood (specifically Cat's Eye) both in style and content. I've seen reviews where readers disliked the lack of a huge ending but I think that's what makes the plot so interesting. Through the exploration of the memory box the narrator goes on a journey of discovery not only of her birth mother but also of herself and gradually she begins to understand her personality and her behaviours. In addition she grieves the death of the mother who she knew and the mother who she didn't and comes out of the other side of the process more accepting of her childhood and life experiences. If you appreciate the gentle self discovery of characters rather than always needing a bug reveal then I think this is definitely one to try.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't overwhelmed by this novel and thought the box would be much more exciting than it proved to be. It really came down to quite a bit of guess work on the part of the narrator Catherine as to why her birth Mother had left the items she did, which seemed a bit silly when clearly the Author knew why the mother had left what she left. It was nice that she cared more for her birth mother when she had finished researching the contents than she had from the beginning of the story but again I felt it would have been more of an interesting story if she had started to consider everything while her adoptive Mum and Dad were alive.

[K.B. Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book, beautifully written. The mother who knew she would die before her child could know her and anticipating the saintly pedestal she would be placed upon after death, created an intriguing memory box for her daughter. The collection of numbered objects, with no letter of explanation, enables the young woman to discover a more realistic understanding of her mother and also herself without any pressure. As Catherine's partner on this journey, I could appreciate her reluctance to open the box, then her frustration at the lack of any letter or notes and finally wonder at the wisdom of the contents.

[Jodie Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow. Slow is the best description I can think of. The idea of the book is sweet. A grown woman learning to denounce her feelings of disconnect and ?resentment towards a mother she never knew via a memory box with no conclusion. I feel the book could’ve been much shorter, which may have made it an easier read. The characters all come across as posh tories, fairly self absorbed, bland. The book didn’t stir any emotion in me. It’s not badly written per say, it just didn’t tick my boxes though others have very much enjoyed it. Would I ever read it again? No, would I recommend it to friends? No. However, it filled a book lull and it can’t be too bad because I did finish reading it.

[Louise Tipple · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull, boring and never really got started. Kept expecting more. Not awful enough to not read, but no characters particularly interested me. The memory box itself was scattered with inconsequential crap and no real conclusion was reached. I suppose the idea was that the character finds themselves, through exploring her Mothers character, but there is no conclusion. She seems unchanged and the whole book seems utterly pointless. Was so glad to finish this book, so I can read something interesting.
Disappointing as the Author has a good name and is often recommended, hence my reason for reading. Will not read another of her books.

[Abbie Brindle · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the style of book is interesting and different from other reads, the character of Catherine was fundamentally boring and spoilt. There lacked a certain empathy throughout the story, and her emotional response was unconvincing quite repeatedly. I think the way the book was written was brilliant, but the structure caused me to lose interest about half way through the book. Most of the characters lacked any interesting qualities, aside Isabella, who didn’t get the focused writing time that she deserved. All in all, the book was fine. I wouldn’t recommend, but I’m glad I read it. The ending was bitter sweet and while I was disappointed by the lack of a reveal, I did quite enjoy the end.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book I really looked forward to as I've read and enjoyed several of the Forster's others (Diary of an Ordinary Woman I can really recommend.) It was a big disappointment in the main. I found it dull and put it down inbetween reading several books. I did not connect with the main character(s) and was not really bothered if they resolved their issues or not. Rory was the least sympathetic/likeable though I suppose Forster might be trying to say something about mothers,their relationships with their offspring and how this can affect people.

[Josie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ironically, there was nothing memorable about this. The MC/narrator describes her thought processes as "mundane ramblings" -- which pretty much sums up the entire book. She waffles on about this memory box and what it might mean but since anyone who might know is now dead, she never concludes anything for certain. And it's really hard to relate to a woman who is so rich and carefree that she can travel to a Caribbean island on a whim and stay there for a month.

[Sharon Albanese · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of this book was great- a mother who knows she won't live long enough to see her daughter grow up leaves her a group of objects. It should have been a really good book. The problem was that I didn't like the main character. She was brittle, negative and for some reason had an aversion to anything to do with her dead mother. I just couldn't care about this character and that spoilt the book for me.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

So disappointed! The title and premise of the story led me to believe I was in for a great story, but it was so difficult to keep reading as the story seemed to go nowhere. I wanted to care about the woman who lost her mother when only six months old, and the mother who left a box of "memories" for her daughter, but it just didn't happen. I kept reading to see what the answers were, but it just didn't pay off.

[Lucy Wike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the idea of this book but found it very slow and draining to read, much until the last few chapters. It took my so long to read as it just didn’t give me the motivation to keep reading, so it just sat next to other books and I dipped in and out.

I think it could have been better - the idea is great. I was almost filling my own memory box instead - a Time Capsule almost.

Glad it’s finished.

[Vivienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this a damp squib of a novel with a narrator who seemed a selfish, immature young woman who just meandered through her narration. I kept expecting something to happen but it didn't. The back blurb made it sound a lot more promising that it was.

It wasn't a book that any in the group hated - it just didn't impress any apart one member.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not totally gripped by this tale of a 31-year-old woman who opens a memory box left for her by her birth mother, who died when she was an infant. The book is all about her trying to make sense of the various objects and their meaning. Well-written overall but a bit slow and meandering at times, and I was never really enamoured of the main character. 6/10.

[Latricomtoise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though this book is quite short, it took me a while to finish it. Despite a strong beginning, with a good plot idea (the memory box that gives the novel its title), I soon became highly irritated by the main character, Catherine, whom I thought was very mean towards the people around her. The other characters have the same kind of behaviour, which made the novel quite difficult to get into.

[Sarah]

I was expecting something better from the end - some twist maybe concerning Rory, Isabella and Catherine, but it never came. What started out as quite promising ended up as a bit of a disappointment.

[Silverbirch]

The language structure was too linear and repetitive to keep my mind from wondering, "How come this got published?" In addition, the premise for the plot was contrived, not convincing. I couldn't finish it - I barely even got going.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not enjoy this book. The synopsis sounded really good but it's just rambles on. Very In depth description of places she visits which I found really boring. Gave up the book half way through which I hate doing

[Cris Haley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this to be a tedious read, never quite got much out of it. It's unfortunate, since the story idea really drew me in. Enjoyed the characters, but too bad this book never quite hit its mark with me; kind of blah- now forcing myself to read the last few pages and am not expecting much.