In the small city of Intervale in northern Maine, on a rainy night, an unknown woman appears on a bridge. "Blue," as she comes to be known, has complete retrograde amnesia. Her condition provides a lens through which author Sarah Van Arsdale examines questions of identity, isolation, and loss. As the protagonist tries to recover fragments of her memory, she becomes the focus of the obsessions of local resident Rita LaPlatte, who sets about stealthily proving that Blue is her "missing" twin. While in Intervale, Blue comes under the care of Robert Reichman, a psychiatrist who is grappling with his own lost identity as a Jew—a battle that is underscored by his father’s rapidly deteriorating memory loss. Also under the care of Dr. Reichman is Annie Blaise, a psychotic woman housed at the hospital during the harsh winter months after she is arrested for lighting fires by the river. It is Annie who holds the key to the question of both her own identity and Blue’s, an answer not revealed until the book’s last pages.
Winner of the 2002 Peter Taylor Prize for the novel, this subtle, engaging story entertains while exploring intriguing questions of memory and loss, mystery and revelation, dreaming and waking.
