The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science--A Memoir [Hardcover]

Jill Price (Author), Bart Davis (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2008

Jill Price has the first diagnosed case of a memory condition called "hyperthymestic syndrome" -- the continuous, automatic, autobiographical recall of every day of her life since she was fourteen. Give her any date from that year on, and she can almost instantly tell you what day of the week it was, what she did on that day, and any major world event or cultural happening that took place, as long as she heard about it that day. Her memories are like scenes from home movies, constantly playing in her head, backward and forward, through the years; not only does she make no effort to call her memories to mind, she cannot stop them. The Woman Who Can't Forget is the beautifully written and moving story of Jill's quest to come to terms with her extraordinary memory, living with a condition that no one understood, including her, until the scientific team who studied her finally charted the extraordinary terrain of her abilities. As we learn of Jill's struggles first to realize how unusual her memory is and then to contend, as she grows up, with the unique challenges of not being able to forget -- remembering both the good times and the bad, the joyous and the devastating, in such vivid and insistent detail -- the way her memory works is contrasted to a wealth of discoveries about the workings of normal human memory and normal human forgetting. Intriguing light is shed on the vital role of what's called "motivated forgetting"; as well as theories about childhood amnesia, the loss of memory for the first two to three years of our lives; the emotional content of memories; and the way in which autobiographical memories are normally crafted into an ever-evolving and empowering life story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Price has been known to scientists only as AJ, a woman with a memory so unprecedented they had to coin a term for it: hyperthymestic syndrome.With this book, she is coming out publicly for the first time to discuss her condition. Not only is Price powerless to stop remembering, but each memory brings with it an emotion every bit as potent as it was the first day I had it. That means constantly reliving not just the good times—hanging out at the Ed Sullivan Show with her father, a William Morris agent, or having her cheeks pinched by Milton Berle—but the painful times as well. Tormented by her total recall, at age 34 Price contacted memory expert James McGaugh and finally began the process of controlling her memory. Not all the details of Price's life are so compelling, but her insights into the nature of memory, forgetting and the formation of our sense of self will resonate with a wide audience. Appearances on 20/20 May 9 and Good Morning America May 12.(May 6)
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Review

"The Woman Who Can't Forget is fascinating, whether dealing with the details of Price's life or with the science of the brain, offering glimpses not only into the mysteries of memory but into emotional struggles like depression, anger, forgiveness and even growing up." -- BookPage.com

"[Price's] insights into the nature of memory, forgetting and the formation of our sense of self will resonate with a wide audience." -- Publishers Weekly

"Price has a knack for vividly rendering childhood memories like scenes from an impressionistic film." -- Kirkus Reviews --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416561765
• ISBN-13: 978-1416561767
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ever Wished for A Perfect Recall of Names, Faces or Events? Maybe That Wouldn't be Such a Great Thing..., May 11, 2008

By 

K. Corn "reviewer" (midwest, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science--A Memoir (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating glimpse into the world of a person who has a perfect memory. If you feel the slightest bit skeptical about this, Jill Price was put through intensive testing, along with several other people. Not only could she recall exact dates but the tiniest bits of info about what happened on those days, including what amounted to her entire life, way beyond the norms of human memory. She'd also kept a diary for years.

Other people were also tested and diagnosed with this special, probably rare, condition...and this is what makes this book so interesting. Even though Jill Price isn't the only person known to have "perfect recall or memory", her personality is unique. She tends to see her inability to forget as a curse as much as a blessing, one that often haunts and torments her.

I'd read books about other people with a similar condition but they were autistic, sometimes called idiot savants, and often lacked basic skills that were considered normal. Jill Price was the first person who seems normal in many ways but also has this extraordinary memory. I couldn't help wanting to know how a child copes with this and grows up being so different from those around her. This book was a fascinating biography as well as illuminating about the mysteries of memory, recall and the advantages of those with average abilities to remember things. Until I read this book, I often rued my inability to remember a person's name, face or a particular movie title. I've changed my perspective.

Sometimes being able to forget can be a blessing.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but VERY incomplete story on hypermemory, mental/mental health issues of MD's reporrt ignored, October 4, 2008

By 

S. J. Snyder "De gustibus non disputandum" (Various, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science--A Memoir (Hardcover)

I'm perhaps being a little more generous than some of the two-star reviewers. I did find information about her timeline and some other things interesting, but, contra her own accounts, I don't think her obsessive journaling necessarily has anything to do with her hypermemory. Certainly, it's not a direct part of her hypermemory, or the more technical, hyperthymesia.

Now, might it be part of an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder? Certainly. There's other facets of her life, that if you connect the dots, could one wonder, at least, whether Price doesn't have OCD and/or other mental health issues.

But, she and coauthor Bart Davis don't talk about that.

Nor do they talk about the report of the UCI medical and neurological professionals. After all, Price herself wonders if her hypermemory isn't connected to how she has dealt with her childhood.

Nor does she mention that she has taken Prozac and Zoloft as high as 200mg/day, and that she reported having numerous phobias, including phobias about medical professionals, to McGaugh et al. Or having hit her head at age 8.

Given the studies ongoing of links between PTSD and memory, and the fact that the Neurocase study is readily available on the Internet, it's chintzy at the least to not have discussed these issues in the book.

Available here in full: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:n_iEEyk5ROcJ:today.uci.edu/pdf/AJ_2006.pdf+%22A+Case+of+Unusual+Autobiographical+Remembering%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

The full study also mentions some other mental functioning diagnoses; some linguistic problems, including word list problems (hence her memory problems) is one; perseveration is another, and it's linked to brain trauma. Interestingly, Price doesn't mention having had a head injury at age 8, as documented in the professional study, and which is about the time her memory started ramping up.

It's time to quote from that report:

"AJ may have a variant of a neurodevelopmental, fronto-
striatal disorder putting her at risk for her hyperthymestic syn-
drome. Deficits in executive functioning and anomalous lateral-
ization are both found in neurodevelopmental frontostriatal
disorders which include autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder
(OCD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette's syn-
drome and schizophrenia."

I write none of this to put her down or beat her up, but, as I suspected at the start of this review (written before I Googled the Neurocase report), there's more behind the scenes than just a world-record autobiographical memory.

Finally, re her memory itself, and without diminishing her incredible autobiographical memory, it should be noted that she is, in some types of specific episodic memory, nothing better than normal.

In short, we didn't get anywhere near the full Jill Price in this book. And, nobody forced her to write anything at all in the first place so, sorry, it doesn't deserve more than two stars.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I won't forget this book!, May 9, 2008

By 

Shannon L. Yarbrough "Shannon L. Yarbrough" (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science--A Memoir (Hardcover)

We all have days we wish we could forget. If we think back, I'm sure we also have memories that have escaped us from long ago which we wish we could remember.

Jill Price is a unique person, the first, who can honestly say she can't forget a single day, and has little or no problem with those memories the rest of us cling to.

Jill has a memory condition called "hyperthymestic syndrome" and believe it or not she can recall headlines, deaths, birthdays, holidays, tragedies, worldwide news, and even her own everyday activities from every single day of her life since she was just 14 years old.

In a recent interview with Diane Sawyer, Jill gave the dates and days of the week certain events happened that Diane called out at random from the death of Elvis to the date of Reagan's first inauguration. She is not always 100% right, but is usually not off by more than 7 days. Imagine being able to recall every single Christmas you've experienced, and all from memory.

Jill's story is extraordinary. As you read her memoir, you'll ask yourself, "is this a curse or a blessing?" Is it a gift you'd want to be blessed with? Jill has adjusted well to it. Her life has been unique. She has loved and lost. Scientists have studied her, but through it all she has learned to cope and adapt to this bizarre wonder.

You will be touched by her words, and you certainly won't forget them!