‘Noah’s Compass’ by Anne Tyler

  Liam Pennywell never has been one to give much thought to the past. In fact, at 61, he has spent most of his life trying to forget his.
  Despite two failed marriages, three daughters who he didn’t raise and a sister he hardly speaks to, Liam doesn’t believe there’s any sense in harboring regrets.
  Liam, a schoolteacher, downsizes to a smaller apartment after being forced to retire. During his first night, tucked snugly in his sheets, he’s attacked by an intruder. He awakes in the hospital with no memory of the attack but with an urgent need to recover his lost memories — no matter how bad they might be.
  His obsession leads him to a woman named Eunice, who he hopes can help him remember and who rekindles feelings in Liam he had thought were long lost.
  In “Noah’s Compass,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Tyler recounts Liam’s journey with realism and compassion. For along with his past, Liam has forgotten that life’s filled with ups and downs, that every day holds opportunity for love, mending relationships, or finding meaning in the little things. Liam reflects the reality of many who struggle to come to terms with the past. He clings to his pessimism, explaining how disconnected from his life he has become and how discontent.
  “Sometimes I think my life is just ... drying up and hardening, like one of those mouse carcasses you find beneath a radiator.”
  Tyler effortlessly weaves references to the biblical story of Noah throughout the novel — some obvious, some subtle. And though Liam seems adrift much of the time, his is a very human experience, relatable to all those who have done things they regret and get stuck in the act of trying to forget them.
  For Liam it’s the good memories that hold the potential to be his olive branch. Otherwise his life could end up as a fortuneteller warns.
  “You know what they say,” she told him. “ ‘Those who forget the past tend to regret the future.’ ’’