REVIEWING TODAY: MEMORY EMBRACED BY JEREMY BECK
Writers who have mastered their craft as well as Jeremy Beck can present almost any work – from idle but provocative sketches to intricately plotted novels – in almost any form, like a tiny novel (okay, memoir) made from such seemingly idle sketches (Memory Embraced) and make of it a (tiny) master work. So much writing skill is embedded in this hard-to-categorize but intensely memorable piece, it is the reader’s pleasure simply to let go, fully immerse himself, and read. Beck captures exquisitely what it is really like to piece together one’s life through memory. Like a collage of significances coming into and retreating out of focus, rather than a planned trajectory of causative events. Which means his prose often reads like poetry, evoking visceral feelings and connotations through pattern rather than a shallower understanding through simple connectivity. Quite remarkable, really.
Jeremy Beck’s tiny novel (Novella? Short Story? Okay, Memoir. But … it feels like a really, really short novel) Memory Embraced might be regarded as “experimental”. If so, the experiment succeeds marvelously. Despite its brevity, the book does not feel short, nor even truncated. One finds himself savoring all the words, savoring all the thoughts, savoring all the observations. One finds himself inhabiting all of these as if the recollections are truly his. Which marks the true success of any writer: Making his reader feel this is the story of his own life. His thoughts and observations. His understandings. There is mention made of the narrator’s (recollector’s? author’s?) compositional underpinnings. All right, then. Memory Embraced is a beautiful, timeless composition.
J. BECK
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Joel R. Dennstedt – Top Reviewer for Readers’ Favorite
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