The Great Forgetting

In his second novel, Renner (The Man from Primrose Lane) brings readers a sci-fi journey in which the dystopia isn’t set in the future, but the present. Jack Felter, a history teacher in Cleveland, begrudgingly heads back to his hometown of Franklin Mills, Ohio, to visit his ailing father, “the Captain”; Jack’s sister, Jean; and her daughter, Paige. Once there, Jack finds more to do than just worry about the Captain’s fading mind—namely, helping his ex-lover Sam Brooks find her husband and Jack’s former best friend, Dr. Tony Sanders, who disappeared three years earlier. Jack’s search starts with a teenage mental patient, Cole Monroe, who quickly brings Jack into his delusional world, just as he did Tony. “First things first,” Cole says, “you have to start boiling your water.” But are Cole’s conspiracy theories about fluoride, HAARP radio waves, Nazi artifacts, and memory control all just fantasies, or truth? Unraveling Tony’s disappearance brings Jack, the Captain, Cole, Sam, and others into a different world and an alternate history where “the government rewrote people’s memories and reset the calendar.” Though packed with thrills, Renner’s historical revisions put the reader on the defensive, making it difficult to be fully immersed in the action. (Nov.) ★