One of my absolute favorite Christmas movies is "Comfort & Joy," starring Nancy McKeon and Steve Eckholdt. Jane Berry (McKeon), an ambitious, materialistic young professional woman, skids and hits a light pole while on the way to her boss's suburban Christmas party, knocking herself out. She regains consciousness and discovers that it is now 10 years later and she is a fashion-challenged housewife and mother of two, married to a man (Eckholdt) who runs a homeless shelter. She also has no memory of the past 10 years. I was very excited to discover that Moriarty's "What Alice Forgot" has a similar theme.
In 2008 Alice Love is injured during a spin class at a her local gym, hitting her head as the result of a fall. She wakes up thinking it is 1998 and discovers that she is ten years older, thinner, the mother of three children that she can't recall ever seeing, and separated from her beloved husband and soul mate, Nick. Alice is shocked to discover the woman that she has become and she isn't sure that she likes herself. She also has no memory of what events led to the breakup of her marriage or how her relationships with her sister, mother, and friends have evolved over the past 10 years. Apparently a mysterious woman named Gina was her best friend until her death a year before and Nick has become a sarcastic workaholic. As she works to regain her memory Alice also struggles to understand how and why her life and marriage have changed so drastically from the dreams she held in 1998.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could revisit our younger selves and experience again the dreams and ambitions and hopes for the future that defined us then? For Alice, her amnesia is a gift that enables her to re-evaluate her life and the decisions that led to where she is in 2008. Having to get to know everyone, either as their 10-years-older selves or, as in the case of her children, from scratch, to peel away the layers of time and try to make sense of where everything stands today, to be dropped suddenly 10 years into your own future...what an idea! Moriarty makes it work. You'll love watching Alice's past unfold before her eyes and enjoy the inevitable comic moments that come with forgetting 10 years of a life and the technology that had developed during that time (what is "texting" and why is everyone driving vehicles as big as tanks?). I waited a few weeks to get this book because a book club was reading it. It was well worth the wait!
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