A Small Memory

"There are many great portrayals of male devotion in fiction... but it's rare for such a dynamic to be treated as a novel's primary subject... A Small Memory is a lovely complement to the canon of male friendships." - Independent Book Review

"A moving novel about tragedy and the persistence of friendship." - Kirkus Reviews

"A Small Memory is a tender story about the many forms friendship can take after life changes it." - Literary Titan

Memories can sustain a friendship...or destroy it.

Summer, 1975. Eighteen-year-old Mike Youngstown and his best friend, Ted, take jobs as live-in counselors at a group home in their Ohio hometown, one last summer before college, basketball, and the rest of their lives. Then one violent night changes everything.

Ted is brutally attacked by a resident and left in a coma. When he finally wakes, the nicknames, the shared dreams, every memory of his old life and of Mike, are gone, and his future is changed forever. Mike is left with a stranger in his best friend's body, and a question he can't stop asking: Why wasn't I there?

Quiet and emotionally resonant, A Small Memory is a novel about friendship tested by trauma, the weight of responsibility, and the long work of forgiveness. For readers who believe the deepest love stories are sometimes about friends, it asks: Who are we when the past is gone, and who will we be if it returns?