Memory as Burden and Currency

Russell shows that memory functions like a form of currency in Uz, and the novel argues that turning grief into a transaction makes both mercy and violence easier to normalize. The Antidote’s practice resembles a bank: customers arrive with “deposits,” expect receipts, and demand “withdrawals” with the impatience of creditors. Because the town treats forgetting as a purchasable service, people begin to act as if their pain is the only pain that matters, and as if someone else is obligated to carry it for them. This arrangement creates the illusion that suffering can be removed without consequence, even though the Antidote’s body and mind absorb what the town refuses to face.

The book makes the moral stakes explicit when power seeks to convert memory into protection. Sheriff Iscoe’s threat is not only physical but archival: he wants to decide...