Randolph "Dilda" Carter

Two problems with this book. First, the title is misleading since only about 1/5 or the stories (and a couple of essays) deal with what I would call amnesia, the rest could mostly be loosely defined as mind or memory stories, and about 1/10 just don't belong here. They must have been editor favorites that Lethem had been dying to use somewhere. This wouldn't be a big problem if most of the stories were exceptional. I'm not adverse to genre bending but I expect a book like this that calls itself out as a particular thing, is that thing.

The second problem is they're not exceptional overall. These stories are overall average and a few below average. Most were just dull. There were only one or two that really grabbed my attention and became more memorable (he, he). Even the Lethem contribution starts great and then just devolves into (alleged) cleverness.

The only thing I'm sure of is in about 2 years I will have developed amnesia whenever someone asks me anything about this book.