Last night I finished Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss (Either Jonathan Safran Foer is lucky or she is, I can't decide (I think the latter)). This is the story of Samson Greene who is recovering from a juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma. In other words, he has amnesia and cannot remember anything past the age of 12 or before the age of 34. One day, while sitting in his office located in the English Department of, I think, Columbia University, he closed a book and forgot everything. The tumor had been growing unnoticed in his brain for sometime, but only affected him when he closed that book. He was found in the Nevada desert, taken to a hospital, the tumor was removed and he was given a new life. But his old life was there in the form of a wife he could not remember, friends whose faces meant nothing, a mother whose death was a shock, etc. I keep thinking that this all probably sounds like a made for lifetime type movie. But it didn't feel like that. Krauss has a good style, nothing exuberant, just smooth and succint. I liked the way she laid out her story, especially the choice of the opener and closer. This is her first book, you should read it, and then join me for her second, The History of Love, which I have on hold at the library.