The Art of Forgetting

Julia and Marisa have been best friends since high school. They’ve planned their lives together, and they’re living the dream—moving from their small mid-western town to New York, Marisa working as a fashion editor while Julia works in the world of dance. Since they first knew each other, Julia’s been the one in charge, making decisions, even breaking up Marisa’s first serious relationship because Julia knew it would come between them.

When Julia is hit by a cab, she survives with minimal injuries, it seems. But it soon becomes apparent that she has suffered a major brain trauma that changes her personality. Marisa finds herself floundering in this new reality, as Julia is, for example, suddenly obsessed with the colour purple and has a kitten, instead of hating cats and loving only neutrals. Additionally, the front lobal damage has made her devastatingly honest—to the point of hurting Marisa’s feelings time and time again.

The Art of Forgetting is a story of adult friendship, and it’s very well crafted, moving back and forth between the women in college and present day. Marisa and Julia are both flawed characters, and their friendship is far from perfect, and yet they are realistic. I’ll admit there were moments when I was angry with one or both of the characters, and there was a chunk of the book where I was very mistrustful, afraid that Marisa was going to choose the rom-com cliché ending that usually has me screaming at the movie screen. (This might be a spoiler although I have tried to be subtle.) However, the characters grow and change, as Marisa gains new confidence in herself and as Julia slowly but steadily regains more and more of her brain function.

Ultimately, Marisa recognizes that she needs to leave the past in the past and embrace both the new Julia and forgive her for her occasional heavy-handedness. She takes a volunteer position with an after-school program, training young girls to run a 5K, and gains her own confidence as a result, to the point where she leaves a job she’s not enjoying to embrace something completely new.

The book’s title plays with words a bit, as Marisa realizes that sometimes forgetting, and forgiving, is the way to make a long-term friendship survive. It’s an art all right, but it’s one that’s worth learning how to practice.

The Art of Forgetting is a reflection on how a true friendship can weather all sorts of storms, emerging even stronger. It made me think of my own long-term friendships, of some of the things my friends and I have survived together, and especially of a friend who suffered brain trauma but who mercifully kept her same personality. It’s worth reading. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Elizabeth isn’t very good at watching rom-coms but she’s good at reading. She does have some very long-term, enduring friendships. Read more at her blog Planet Nomad.