The Memory Artists

Publishers Weekly

A renegade scientist's pathbreaking memory experiments form the core of Moore's dashing, postmodern debut novel. When young Noel Burun, the son of a disappointed chemist, is taken to see the renowned Montreal neurologist Emile Vorta, the boy is diagnosed with "synaesthesia," a condition in which all the senses intensely trigger one another. The malady, if one can call it that, gives Noel a super-Proustian gift of recollection. It proves a real boon when, years later, Noel must manage Stella, his beautiful widowed mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. As the novel unfolds, Noel, now a University of Quebec psychology grad student, joins Vorta's neuropsych lab. There, he attempts to find a wonder drug to cure his mother, enlisting the lab's assortment of unconventional charactersto help him: the cynical rou and actor Norval X. Blaquiere, hell-bent on a performance-art project that involves seducing an alphabet's worth of women, A to Z (he's on S-as in "Stella"); former film star Samira Darwish, who steps into Vorta's amnesia experiments and reinvents herself as Noel's modest muse; and jokey, chemical-happy JJ Yelle, who helps Noel concoct outrageous experiments. Canadian Moore exhibits a nimble, sprightly touch, with understated emotive depths; his rendering of Stella's sadly solipsistic diary is particularly heart-wrenching. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This exceptionally entertaining and clever second novel from the author of Red Rose Chain deftly explores the intricacies of human memory while drawing a touching portrait of human relationships. Moore manages that rare combination of postmodern hyperintelligence, emotional insightfulness, and cutting humor. Noel Burun is a "hypermnesic synaesthete," or someone with a mind that connects a vast collection of fantastic colors to the voices he hears. He also possesses an extraordinary memory, one that enables him to recall almost instantly such obscure things as entire passages of Arabic poetry and complicated chemical formulas. Noel has decided to dedicate his entire life and mnemonic powers to the unlikely cause of finding a cure for Alzheimer's (his mother has it), in the process enlisting the help of three friends with their own memory issues: Norval, a modern-day Lord Byron and conniving Lothario; Samira, a former Hollywood actress with whom Noel is in love; and JJ, who deals with painful memories by regressing into a perpetual state of optimistic adolescence. If Moore's novel contains one flaw, it may be that it closes too abruptly, but that doesn't detract from its skillful balance of character study and intellectualism. Highly recommended for general fiction collections.-Kevin Greczek, Ewing, NJ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Memory can be as much a curse as it is a blessing. Representing a quantum leap forward from his workmanlike Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain (2002), Canadian author Moore here turns in a lovely Quebecois opus about people trapped by their memories, or lack thereof. Noel Burun is a hypermnesiac synesthete, meaning he sees words in colors. He also has a near-photographic memory for practically everything he's experienced since birth; his recall would impress Proust. And like Proust, Noel is lost in the loops of his nostalgia-a single word can send him on an interior rollercoaster of sensory overload: "Noel needed to absorb a person's voice, experience the distinct colours and shapes, before he could decipher the words themselves." But Moore isn't content to simply trap readers in Noel's funhouse mind. His book-recipient of the 2005 Canadian Authors Association Award for Best Novel-is written as faux reportage, the work of a "professional writer-translator" assigned by the legendary Dr. Vorta to compile the story of Noel (whom Vorta has been studying for years), as well as that of Noel's Alzheimer's-afflicted mother and three others. The first is Noel's complete opposite (and best friend) Norval Xavier Blaquiere, a devastatingly handsome Byronic French aesthete in the midst of a performance-art piece that requires him to screw his way through the alphabet. A potential target for his "S" conquest is Samira Darwish, beautiful, Persian and sort of lost, sublimating her bad-boy attraction to Norval by befriending Noel. Somewhere on the margins is JJ, an overgrown man-boy with a yen for inventions. Through a series of tricky plot devices that would be called cliche if they weren't so enjoyable, allthree end up living with Noel. Moore expends most of his energy on the inner life of the fascinating, dour Noel, but he also has fun with the book's form, as evidenced in his occasionally humorous use of footnotes. A kaleidoscopic melodrama that earns points for its high-art stylistics, yet still works all the emotions.