Customer Reviews

The Amnesia Clinic

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Amnesia Clinic

Ecuador in the 1990s. Fabian and Anti (Anthony) are great friends. Fabian lives with an exotic uncle, Suarez, and suffers from the dark cloud of a dead father and missing mother - almost certainly dead, but he is not prepared to accept her death. Anti lives with his much less exotic expat family who expect him to turn up to events at the British Embassy whenever required, and who are now planning to send him to boarding school in England.

Fabian fantasises about the whereabouts of his missing mother, and his fantasies get wilder. The boys skip school, with the necessary forged excuse notes, to go and find her, Fabian believing that this might actually be possible, Anti going along for the adventure. And indeed it is an adventure, with crazy characters met en route, and different modes of transport.

This is definitely a page turner - all the time you want to know what will happen next - each time they put themselves into danger you wonder how they will get out, or even whether they will get out.

Highly recommended

This is a fabulous book, a really assured debut. I was dying to get my teeth into it, as I went on an extended holiday in Ecuador a few years ago and fell in love with the place. I was not disappointed. This book captures some of its magic. It's extremely well written, with fully formed characters (who I didn't necessarily always like) and has a really cool take on the whole nature of story itself. The ending shocked me, and made me cry, and at the same time I was left wondering what had really happened. I love the way the writer plays with language and storytelling. I think storytelling is what books should be about and that it often gets neglected for the sake of deeper themes and unusual structures in novels these days. I highly recommend this book, which I believe has also been shortlisted for a couple of prizes.

Much enjoyed this thought-provoking, moving book. Memorable, unusual but totally believable characters - the two young men and the uncle especially. And Quito and Ecuador are vividly portrayed, too.

I couldn't decide whether this book was aimed at young adults or was pitching for magical realism. I think the author had something important to say but I'm not sure that he managed to say it. Some parts were laboured and over explained, others left unexplored.

Really enjoyed this book. Moved at a fast pace, and the style of writing switching between their flights of fancy and reality made it an interesting read. Bit of a rushed end, something I also found with his other book, Heliopolis, but overall a very good read.

'The Amnesia Clinic' is a novel not easily forgotten. Catching the sounds and smells of Ecuador and its people, indigenous as well as Hispanic, James Scudamore's excellent debut takes us beyond beach-bum banality and into recursive stories, stories about stories, storytelling and storytellers. What is real - what we experience, or what we are told? If a tale is told in two ways, can both be true?

If a fantasy is more credible for being well-told, this is a fine example. Warmly written and tidily edited, Scudamore's book is a worthwhile read, whether or not you've been to Ecuador. He left me wanting to know more about his central characters, but in a good way. Next, please!

For sheer page-turning pleasure this book is hard to beat: I didn't really know what to expect from the cover when I picked it up, but found myself devouring it in a couple of days. There are plenty of wild tangents and stories within stories here but they are backed up by tight authorial control and beautiful writing. Recommended.

If you like great storytelling with a twist in its tail then The Amnesia Clinic is the book for you. Anti and Fabian make an appealing pair of adventurors whose love of tall tales and fantastic stories is infectious. On one level this book is a coming of age tale about boyhood adventure, but there's much more to it than that. James Scudamore asks tough questions about truth and lying, about memory and loss, but at no point does he allow these issues to get in the way of him telling a damn good story himself - and without spoiling it, the ending had me breathless. Read this book, but be prepared for the fact that little is what it seems.