Memory

Throughout The Echo of Old Books, Barbara Davis illuminates the nebulous nature and unrelenting grasp of memory. Memory fuels the characters’ actions and the story’s plot. Hemi and Belle admit that they may not remember past events correctly but are unwilling to let go of their anger. They confess that they prefer to hold onto anger rather than process their emotions in a healthy way. Davis uses tangible representations of memory along with Belle’s and Hemi’s novels in order to highlight its impact throughout the novel.

Belle and Hemi both understand the danger of relying on the validity of their own memories but continue to base their reality on their unreliable recollections. Hemi says, “Time does funny things to the memory, twisting it into something convenient and crooked,” believing that Belle misremembered events, not him (213). Trying to conceal the fact that Zachary was...