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Remember This
John Martin, a talented graphic designer employed as a word processor for a prestigious New York investment bank, has happily left behind Texas and his alcoholic, emotionally absent mother. It is the height of the personal computer revolution and the AIDS epidemic, and gentrification is sweeping the city. Alena Marino, John’s supervisor, is an Italian immigrant who shares his hustle and grit, aggressively building a new life for herself. As their affair begins, John imagines himself the perfect lover for Alena, fulfilling her desires without expectation that she leave her husband. But when his oldest sister arrives in town unannounced, he is forced to confront his damaged past and serial history of relationships with stunningly gorgeous, emotionally complex women.
John’s journey to understand the roots of his compulsion to “save” those around him is both aided and thwarted by his relationship with his colleague Jeremy Crawford. Alena’s closest confidant, Jeremy shares an intimacy with her that fuels John's jealousy. Meanwhile, Jeremy finds himself drawn to John and, as his confidant too, participates in the drama of John and Alena’s relationship. As John slowly begins to understand the flawed and wounded experience of love that has followed him through life, he learns how to open himself to true friendship—and to true loss. Set in the midst of cultural upheaval, this powerful novel reverberates across the decades.
John’s journey to understand the roots of his compulsion to “save” those around him is both aided and thwarted by his relationship with his colleague Jeremy Crawford. Alena’s closest confidant, Jeremy shares an intimacy with her that fuels John's jealousy. Meanwhile, Jeremy finds himself drawn to John and, as his confidant too, participates in the drama of John and Alena’s relationship. As John slowly begins to understand the flawed and wounded experience of love that has followed him through life, he learns how to open himself to true friendship—and to true loss. Set in the midst of cultural upheaval, this powerful novel reverberates across the decades.
248 pages, Paperback
Published October 11, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 27, 2023
Across the canon of great literature, there are certain iconic scenes that are indelible: The laugh of John Irving's Owen Meany in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." The screams of the murdered family in O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." And now, a scene from "Remember This," one that is actually delivered in the mind of the novel's protagonist, John, in stunning silence - the silouhette of his lithe married love cradling her infant in a doorway, framed by the glow of the evening. The moment is fraught with almost more pain, beauty, and longing than one can bear, an element that rings true across the scores of so many other gorgeous, deft passages that will never leave you.
Adams' weave is a quite a ride, and he structures the novel as such: He cuts back and forth in time between Texas, where he's reared by an alcoholic mom, along with three older sisters, and his years as a grapic designer in Manhattan. His father is dead so you can feel the vacuum this creates, the hole in the hearts of all the characters. All of the relationships evolve, intertwine over time; each are fraught with heat and tension, marked by their own DNA, and are painting a picture that will only come into full, stunning view in its crushing intensity at the end.
You'll be gutted by the language that describes the city in the gritty '8Os, "...it was as rich and sweet as flesh," along with sentences that telegraph the rub of all things glorious and disgusting in the Big Apple, "The irony, the dichotomy, thrummed in my chest, a subtle variation...I only knew I loved it. Even what was horrible."
One passage that describes his sister hit me with blunt force (in a good way), this, after a traumatic incident with her boyfriend, Adams writes, "She looks like two girls at once - my sister, and a stranger." This, I feel, is emblematic and even prescient, as it informs all his relationships with his siblings (though one in particular) as the novel progresses.
And then, the coup de gras, John's relationship with Alena, his boss. Steamy and forbidden, the stakes are dangerously high and at one point, we think their liason has been discovered. John's wringing of his hands and his heart are shimmering, excruciating, which is a testament to just how much love for Alena he exudes - and we feel right along with him.
And yet, there's another point on his love triangle, which I suppose makes it a square, and it's Jeremy, John and Alena's office mate. He's their confidante, (but moreso Alena's), who ultimately succombs to AIDS. When he dies, Alena is undone. As she's weeping in John's arms in her bed, he thinks, "I didn't know that to do except be a mooring and not tear loose in the emotions buffeting her." Then later, after Alena is asleep next to him, we read, "As we held each other I watched the shadows on the ceiling again. They were particularly active tonight because of the wind through the trees outside. The shadows didn't belong to her husband, I decided, only the ceiling they played upon. They belonged to no one, but perhaps they favored me as I was more like them."
The ending - swoon. I shall not spoil it, but Adams' masterful hand shines bright and it will leave you in awe, if not tears.
In sum, this must-read devastated me. It's the heartbreaking story of heartbreak that simmers and sparkles, weeps, and wows. For anyone who longs for New York City in the '80s, when life there was unleashed and savage, beautiful and unmoored, it will take you down and then, leave you floating - weightless.
Adams' weave is a quite a ride, and he structures the novel as such: He cuts back and forth in time between Texas, where he's reared by an alcoholic mom, along with three older sisters, and his years as a grapic designer in Manhattan. His father is dead so you can feel the vacuum this creates, the hole in the hearts of all the characters. All of the relationships evolve, intertwine over time; each are fraught with heat and tension, marked by their own DNA, and are painting a picture that will only come into full, stunning view in its crushing intensity at the end.
You'll be gutted by the language that describes the city in the gritty '8Os, "...it was as rich and sweet as flesh," along with sentences that telegraph the rub of all things glorious and disgusting in the Big Apple, "The irony, the dichotomy, thrummed in my chest, a subtle variation...I only knew I loved it. Even what was horrible."
One passage that describes his sister hit me with blunt force (in a good way), this, after a traumatic incident with her boyfriend, Adams writes, "She looks like two girls at once - my sister, and a stranger." This, I feel, is emblematic and even prescient, as it informs all his relationships with his siblings (though one in particular) as the novel progresses.
And then, the coup de gras, John's relationship with Alena, his boss. Steamy and forbidden, the stakes are dangerously high and at one point, we think their liason has been discovered. John's wringing of his hands and his heart are shimmering, excruciating, which is a testament to just how much love for Alena he exudes - and we feel right along with him.
And yet, there's another point on his love triangle, which I suppose makes it a square, and it's Jeremy, John and Alena's office mate. He's their confidante, (but moreso Alena's), who ultimately succombs to AIDS. When he dies, Alena is undone. As she's weeping in John's arms in her bed, he thinks, "I didn't know that to do except be a mooring and not tear loose in the emotions buffeting her." Then later, after Alena is asleep next to him, we read, "As we held each other I watched the shadows on the ceiling again. They were particularly active tonight because of the wind through the trees outside. The shadows didn't belong to her husband, I decided, only the ceiling they played upon. They belonged to no one, but perhaps they favored me as I was more like them."
The ending - swoon. I shall not spoil it, but Adams' masterful hand shines bright and it will leave you in awe, if not tears.
In sum, this must-read devastated me. It's the heartbreaking story of heartbreak that simmers and sparkles, weeps, and wows. For anyone who longs for New York City in the '80s, when life there was unleashed and savage, beautiful and unmoored, it will take you down and then, leave you floating - weightless.
July 5, 2023
Steve Adams’s deft debut novel, REMEMBER THIS, zigzags between two worlds: the present day plot is fully immersed in New York City of 1988 (a city then clogged with grit and graffiti, and tragically, plagued by AIDS—rubbing up against the rise of computers and gentrification). This is threaded through with alternating years and chapters of childhood-through-young-adulthood-in- Texas scenes, specifically late 1960s-early 1970s in New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio, and then early 1980s in Austin. In NYC, it’s all investment bank offices and an affair with his intriguing boss Alena. Our adrift protagonist John is the other man in a tantalizing yet agonizing love triangle. But in the back story, he’s the protective, doting younger brother to a trio of older sisters, who one-by-one when it’s their time to fly the coop, leave their intense home with an alcoholic mother passed out in the living room chair. It’s an inevitable march of hope and heartbreak as each sister must move beyond where their little brother can reach--let alone save--them. Adams revealed in an interview about his craft that he pictured the sisters as the top points of a diamond shape with the younger brother at the bottom (arguably two triangles, stacked). NYC, said the author, is the external plot (our character loves to wander the streets endlessly), while TX is very interior, in the fraught tangle of the troubled yet loving childhood home. That said, I found the pervading feeling of the whole book not one of daylight but of darkness. John's habit of roaming in the city is mostly nocturnal as he's prone to pub-crawl and his relationship with his boss only inhabits a dim space with some sheets on her living room floor. The southern scenes are riveting yet also feel candle-lit; it's definitely a place that will render one claustrophobic--you need to leave to survive it.
Adams, once a playwright and also a professional writing coach and editor, clearly holds the reader in capable hands as he forms these characters into real and dramatic breathing humanity, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. In addition to the structure of the container he hangs things on behind the scenes, there’s the almost musical shaping element of rhyming action where motifs repeat but shift slightly, expanding character. The young boy runs after each car of each departing sister, giving them a push off into their dubious futures painfully separate from him, the scene echoing in a different way each time. He also constantly brushes their hair—it’s something of his love language—so when a hairbrush appears in the present-day scene with his lover, it’s an aha moment that makes the reader take further notice and make their own connections on the echoes between past and present, sisters and lover.
It's also important to mention REMEMBER THIS is a sexy page-turner, riveting and suspenseful!
Adams, once a playwright and also a professional writing coach and editor, clearly holds the reader in capable hands as he forms these characters into real and dramatic breathing humanity, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. In addition to the structure of the container he hangs things on behind the scenes, there’s the almost musical shaping element of rhyming action where motifs repeat but shift slightly, expanding character. The young boy runs after each car of each departing sister, giving them a push off into their dubious futures painfully separate from him, the scene echoing in a different way each time. He also constantly brushes their hair—it’s something of his love language—so when a hairbrush appears in the present-day scene with his lover, it’s an aha moment that makes the reader take further notice and make their own connections on the echoes between past and present, sisters and lover.
It's also important to mention REMEMBER THIS is a sexy page-turner, riveting and suspenseful!
January 7, 2023
“Remember This” is a gorgeous book that brings to life a momentous time when New York was filled with a creative exuberance flowering in a grungy city mixed with the sadness of loss as AIDS is cutting through many lives. Steve Adams tells parallel stories of a young artist falling in love with a married woman in New York and his enigmatically shadowed childhood in Texas. The parallel stories weave back and forth with many beautiful and painful experiences told with honesty and subtlety. These stories gradually come together to reveal a fascinating pattern of the dance between the masculine and feminine, a generous acceptance of all the flawed characters, a lovely yes to the erotic pull that brings them together and into trouble. This writer’s imagination is vibrantly alive, the book is a generous acceptance of an incredible cast of flawed characters and an affirmation of living the creative life with its joys and the stinging pain of loss.
October 27, 2022
I don’t bother recommending books. I count myself lucky if and when I run across a keeper. This time is different. I can’t remember the last time I pushed a book at a friend but so far I’ve bought two more for friends in other states.
It isn’t the logistics that make this book resonate with me. Even if I hadn’t, like the author, lived in Austin and New York in the 80s I would still be made to feel, smell and hear both places and would miss the me that I was in those days and the people - not always friends - who made up my circles. The story is compelling - rather the development and growing of the characters is what drives the story. It is sad but painfully satisfying to be able to see what lies ahead for the characters… all of them, and in the end we accept a redemption and forgiveness of our own humanity.
It isn’t the logistics that make this book resonate with me. Even if I hadn’t, like the author, lived in Austin and New York in the 80s I would still be made to feel, smell and hear both places and would miss the me that I was in those days and the people - not always friends - who made up my circles. The story is compelling - rather the development and growing of the characters is what drives the story. It is sad but painfully satisfying to be able to see what lies ahead for the characters… all of them, and in the end we accept a redemption and forgiveness of our own humanity.
November 3, 2022
Such a pleasure to read from start to finish. Adams is a natural story teller with a tale the grabs you immediately as it “starts with the chorus” as they say in songwriting. The novel is about an affair in 1980’s New York City that jumps back and forth to the narrator “John’s” Texas boyhood so it juggles the vulnerability of childhood with the “supposed” agency of adulthood. Engaging all the way.
Knowing the author from my own time living in NY in the late “90’ it was all brought back to life with sensitive details. The urgency of being in your twenties and thirties in a pre-internet world of uncertainty and potential feelings of isolation even in America’s largest city.
Would recommend this to anyone looking for true tales of doomed romance, set in the era of uncertainty about the AIDS epidemic.
Knowing the author from my own time living in NY in the late “90’ it was all brought back to life with sensitive details. The urgency of being in your twenties and thirties in a pre-internet world of uncertainty and potential feelings of isolation even in America’s largest city.
Would recommend this to anyone looking for true tales of doomed romance, set in the era of uncertainty about the AIDS epidemic.
November 9, 2022
I just finished reading REMEMBER THIS, a book I’m sure I will remember for a long time.
The writing and storytelling are intimate and impassioned; details so personal and private, I sometimes felt uncomfortable, as if I were reading the narrator’s diary. But that is what Adams wants you to feel, isn’t it? I think so, and he does it very well.
An intricately told story chock full of secrets, the story parallels a troubling childhood in Austin alongside life as a single young man in 1980’s NYC. Darkness and desire abound. To quote another reviewer because they stated it so beautifully: “The people in this book don't always behave well, but they are sympathetic and complex and real.”
This book was a gift, one that I probably would not have chosen on my own, so my gratitude and thanks to the friend who passed it my way.
The writing and storytelling are intimate and impassioned; details so personal and private, I sometimes felt uncomfortable, as if I were reading the narrator’s diary. But that is what Adams wants you to feel, isn’t it? I think so, and he does it very well.
An intricately told story chock full of secrets, the story parallels a troubling childhood in Austin alongside life as a single young man in 1980’s NYC. Darkness and desire abound. To quote another reviewer because they stated it so beautifully: “The people in this book don't always behave well, but they are sympathetic and complex and real.”
This book was a gift, one that I probably would not have chosen on my own, so my gratitude and thanks to the friend who passed it my way.
March 10, 2023
This book is beautiful! I couldn’t stop turning the pages, so drawn in by the narrator’s voice, by his openness about his vulnerability in love and also with his sisters. It’s also a great depiction of NYC in the 80s, the years of AIDS.
This is a book for women to read. This male narrator doesn’t cloak his feelings in irony or nihilism. He openly, genuinely loves life, art, connection, his family, NYC, and a married woman in an affair he knows will have to end, also knowing that this love will remain with him the rest of his life. You can’t come away from this novel and not feel enlarged by the sheer fact of love in this world.
Adams is a lyrical writer, and the prose just sings, but it also never gets in the way of the story.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND FOR BOOK CLUBS WHO WANT MORE DEPTH IN THEIR SELECTIONS.
This is a book for women to read. This male narrator doesn’t cloak his feelings in irony or nihilism. He openly, genuinely loves life, art, connection, his family, NYC, and a married woman in an affair he knows will have to end, also knowing that this love will remain with him the rest of his life. You can’t come away from this novel and not feel enlarged by the sheer fact of love in this world.
Adams is a lyrical writer, and the prose just sings, but it also never gets in the way of the story.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND FOR BOOK CLUBS WHO WANT MORE DEPTH IN THEIR SELECTIONS.
March 25, 2024
Steve Adams’ first novel is so accomplished, so astute, so vivid and indelible, you’d swear it was written by a writer who’d been publishing novels for decades. And, let me tell you, creating a decent man is difficult to pull off, to make him real, but he does this seemingly effortlessly. His protagonist is a good man, without being cloying. Adams is also capable of crafting lyrical prose out of the mundane aspects of ordinary life, in lines like this: “The football players throw themselves against each other, and the cheerleaders jump and yell, and everyone in the seats rises to their feet, everyone claps and hollers.” Such lively writing helps make this book remarkable and haunting. Also, so many striking, interesting things happen to the characters, I wanted to follow them indefinitely. This is a story to savor and one to read more than once.
January 22, 2023
On the surface, this is a love story between a young artist and his married boss. In the current climate, you might expect a murder to take place or blackmail or some sort of cheap thriller cliche. Fortunately, Adams resists such obvious plot twists. Instead, he goes deeper into the psychology of the characters in order to find the driving force of the narrative, and the end result is an empathetic, insightful, big-hearted examination of what forms us as children and drives us as adults. On top of that, we also get a beautiful love song to New York City in the 1980s. Buy it, read it, share it!
September 16, 2024
This is a beautiful book. Filled with questions about how our pasts intermingle with our present and how love is a super complicated thing. I really, really loved all the nuances about cheating. There's never any "reason" really apart from a restlessness and a desire to connect deeply with another human.
And it's like a big love letter to NYC. All the while being very accurate about what NYC is, about how hard she can be, about how she is a strange haven for people who desperately want to find themselves.
If you like books that create vivid characters that don't have easy answers, this one is for you.
And it's like a big love letter to NYC. All the while being very accurate about what NYC is, about how hard she can be, about how she is a strange haven for people who desperately want to find themselves.
If you like books that create vivid characters that don't have easy answers, this one is for you.
January 2, 2023
Beautiful, poignant, riveting
Remember This is beautifully written and riveting. The author brings you on an emotional journey that will keep you engaged, interested, and sometimes amazed. (I’d say it’s a page turner but I read it on a Kindle app so my thumbs got a little sore from scrolling so much.) He manages to depict a not-so-distant time when NYC was ravaged by the AIDS epidemic without dipping into the maudlin or being overly sentimental. The book focuses on an impossible relationship, but I fell in as much love with the characters as I did with the city. I felt like I was there. More importantly, I wanted to be there. Let me be frank: When an author writes as well as Steve Adam’s does, the going can sometimes be, well, work. Instead Remember This was easy to read—and so fulfilling. There was not a wasted word.
Remember This is beautifully written and riveting. The author brings you on an emotional journey that will keep you engaged, interested, and sometimes amazed. (I’d say it’s a page turner but I read it on a Kindle app so my thumbs got a little sore from scrolling so much.) He manages to depict a not-so-distant time when NYC was ravaged by the AIDS epidemic without dipping into the maudlin or being overly sentimental. The book focuses on an impossible relationship, but I fell in as much love with the characters as I did with the city. I felt like I was there. More importantly, I wanted to be there. Let me be frank: When an author writes as well as Steve Adam’s does, the going can sometimes be, well, work. Instead Remember This was easy to read—and so fulfilling. There was not a wasted word.
October 22, 2022
Edgy and passionate, REMEMBER THIS captures New York City in the late 1980’s through a narrator seduced by everything dark the city has to offer while emotionally grounded in his Texas youth. The pages haunted me from beginning to end as I tried to figure out the paradox between the young man’s sweet nature and a complex if not destructive mind. All the while, I knew I was invested in the character because I kept wondering: what is he doing today? A fantastic read.
December 17, 2022
I really enjoyed Steve Adams' novel. He brings New York City to life, and the novel feels like a kind of ode to the city. Also, the book doesn't shy away from, and, rather, captures the complexities of human existence. The main character's relationships with the people in his life all feel real and intricate. The pace also never flags, and I had difficulty setting the book down. A good problem to have, no doubt. The ending was very satisfying, and perfect for the particular story being told.
September 15, 2022
I was fortunate to read an advanced copy of this novel. It's beautifully written and constructed. I can't say enough about how New York City and Texas are rendered on the page or about the development of John as a character. This book is a ballad to forbidden love and the ways we try to escape the past.
January 22, 2023
REMEMBER THIS was so powerful, and real, and so well written that I had to go outside and take a walk when I finished it. (And it was raining and cold outside.) Subtly and written in such a delicate hand this story builds into a tense real-world conclusion. Without being lewd REMEMBER THIS opens up the role sex plays in deep, abiding love . . . the one we all ache for.
August 1, 2023
An outstanding debut. The author weaves intimate details about personal relationships with specific and dead-on details of New York in the 1980s, it takes your breath away. Not only is the writing atmospheric, it is also rhythmic in how the chapter flow forward and backward between Texas and New York and the present day and the past.
This is just a beautiful book on all counts.
This is just a beautiful book on all counts.
September 11, 2022
Interview forthcoming in jmww journal!
January 1, 2023
Authentic, engaging, and touching. A love letter to the city of New York, and to the act of love itself.
January 20, 2023
This novel is an outstanding example of quality contemporary fiction. The author has won a number of prestigious awards for his short stories, and this first novel is probably going to receive the same sort of critical reception. The (adulterous) love story that serves as a throughline is very intense - I felt like I knew those characters and could sense the rollercoaster of emotions that they were experiencing. Anyone who enjoys stories of romance and longing will really get into this book - I normally don't, but loved this novel nonetheless. The setting and characters (in smalltown Texas of the 60's and 70's) of the narrator's early life were amazing. The Austin scenes in the 80's were equally great.
November 1, 2022
Unforgettable!
A fitting and well crafted tribute to NYC and to the many layers of love. A beautiful story unfolds in 1980s New York while being intertwined by a past that brings us to understand the heart and soul of a young person finding himself through complicated love and coming to terms with a difficult past.
A fitting and well crafted tribute to NYC and to the many layers of love. A beautiful story unfolds in 1980s New York while being intertwined by a past that brings us to understand the heart and soul of a young person finding himself through complicated love and coming to terms with a difficult past.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews