My Life, Deleted

Bolzan, who briefly played with the Cleveland Browns, tries to make sense of his life when, after an accidental slip, he suffered memory loss. His fluke brain injury meant that everything he knew about his previous 46 years was wiped clean, and he was left with unbearable headaches, a family he didn't know, a job he couldn't do, and more questions than a toddler. Writing with the help of his wife, Joan, and journalist-novelist Rother, this memoir perfectly captures Bolzan's desperation and confusion. Even as the writers do a good job keeping up the suspense as to whether Bolzan's memory will ever come back, the up-and-down relationship between husband and wife, who must find out if they can fall in love all over again while also trying to figure out how to pay the bills and handle their son's heroin addiction, is the emotional glue that holds this work together. What the book lacks is Joan's perspective on what it's like to be with a man who didn't remember marrying her. (Oct.)