The Forgetting Time, A Novel by Sharon Guskin

 The Forgetting Time, A Novel by Sharon Guskin. Flatiron Books (Macmillan), 2016. Adult fiction.


What would you do if your small child kept asking for his "other mother" and wanting to go to his other home? This is what happens to Janie and her son in this unsettling story. Noah is terrified of many things, has nightmares, and can't stay in the same preschools. Dr. Jerome Anderson, a psychiatrist, has spent much of his career on what appears to be a wild goose chase documenting children who seem to have lived other lives and then seem to grow up and forget those lives. Dr. Anderson is dying and would like to know for sure if his research proves what he thinks it will. What if they can find Noah's "other mother" if she really exists?


By far, the most riveting parts of the book  are the mother and child relationship. Can Janie help her child? Chapters are often preceded by essays by Dr. Jim Tucker's Life Before Life which is nonfiction and tells of international families with some of the same quandaries as Janie and Noah. While the story ends, readers will have far more questions about this intriguing research.