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Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel

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Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel

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Overview

“It’s safe to say your relationship is in trouble if the only way you can imagine solving your problems is by borrowing a time machine.”

In 2006 comic book dealer John Sherkston has decided to break up with his physicist boyfriend, Taylor Esgard, on the very day Taylor announces he’s finally perfected a time machine for the U.S government. John travels back to 1986, where he encounters “Junior,” his younger, more innocent self. When Junior starts to flirt, John wonders how to reveal his identity: “I’m you, only with less hair and problems you can’t imagine.” He also meets up with the younger Taylor, and this unlikely trio teams up to plot a course around their future relationship troubles, prevent John’s sister from making a tragic decision, and stop George W. Bush from becoming president.
In this wickedly comic, cross-country, time-bending journey, John confronts his own—and the nation’s—blunders, learning that a second chance at changing things for the better also brings new opportunities to screw them up. Through edgy humor, time travel, and droll one-liners, Bob Smith examines family dysfunction, suicide, New York City, and recent American history while effortlessly blending domestic comedy with science fiction. Part acidic political satire, part wild comedy, and part poignant social scrutiny, Remembrance of Things I Forgot is an uproarious adventure filled with sharp observations about our recent past.

InSight Out Book Club, featured selection

Bob Smith named one of Instinct magazine’s Leading Men 2011

Winner, Barbara Gittings Literature Award/Stonewall Book Awards, American Library Association

Finalist, Over the Rainbow Selection, American Library Association

Finalist, Green Carnation Prize, international prize for LGBT Literature

Amazon Top Ten Gay & Lesbian Books of 2011

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299283407
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	06/09/2011
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bob Smith is author of the bestselling humorous memoirs Openly Bob (winner of a Lambda Literary Award) and Way to Go, Smith and the novel Selfish and Perverse, which was one of three finalists for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. As a standup comic, he broke barriers as the first openly gay comedian to appear on TheTonight Show and was featured in his own HBO comedy special. His comic essays and articles have appeared in The Advocate and Out. He grew up in Buffalo, New York, and lives in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

“The prospect of meeting my younger self made me feel awkwardly shy and embarrassed. I tried to think of how I would introduce myself: ‘I’m you, only with sagging flesh and problems you can’t imagine!’ That would win him over. Would he even recognize me? He would have to be disappointed by my appearance. No one wants to see how much hair he’ll lose and weight he’ll gain. I still had muscular arms and a firm chest, but had reached the age where every time I was photographed there was a fifty-fifty chance of a slight double chin vandalizing my portrait.”--excerpt from Remembrance of Things I Forgot

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

Starred Review.
Comic book dealer John Sherkston has finally decides to break up with boyfriend Taylor Esgard after 20 years. However, he decides to do it the day that Taylor completes his masterwork-a functioning time machine, in writer/comedian Smith's (Selfish and Perverse) latest novel. Using this machine, John accidentally travels back to 1986, when he and Taylor first met (and when Molly Ringwald ruled). He seizes this opportunity to give his younger self lots of information, try to save his sister and father from their early deaths, and most daringly, to stop George W. Bush from becoming President. His cohorts-his younger self, "Junior," the younger Taylor, and a group of friends-are pursued by Dick Cheneys old and young and John reaches some important conclusions about life, roads not taken, and what can still be changed. Smith takes an absolutely hysterical romp through our achingly recent history. His characters are sharp, funny, and instantly recognizable in their queer archetypes without being stereotypical. He's not afraid of balancing humor and sadness and manages to combine youthful optimism with the cynicism of age. This will appeal most to a very specific niche audience-LGBT-friendly East Coasters; regardless of scope, Smith executes his tale with witty aplomb.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

If H. G. Wells had been funny and Oscar Wilde obsessed with time travel they might have mated and produced Bob Smith, who has written the funniest and wildest ride imaginable through the recent past and near future.”—Edmund White

“His characters are brilliantly drawn, the dialogue is Preston Sturges deft, the political satire is damning without being shrill, and you will absolutely cry when you read the last line. How did Smith do that? I didn’t think it was possible to be a bigger fan of Bob Smith’s than I already was, but I am.”—David Rakoff, author of Fraud

“An extraordinary novel: smart, funny, fiendishly inventive, often moving and ultimately profound. I've never read anything like it. Bob Smith combines the ingenuity of science fiction with the emotional weight of autobiographical fiction. He then adds politics—in the form of the greatest villain of recent American history. This is a comic novel, but reading it can be a life-altering experience, like falling through a rabbit hole in space/time, and coming out the other side a better person.” —Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters

"Wildly comic political satire mixes with cutting comedy, social commentary, and a touch of sf in this seriously entertaining summer read."—Booklist

“Bob Smith’s Remembrance of Things I Forgot is a delightful, moving portrait of a man who is given the rare opportunity to literally revisit his past, and the novel will likely be considered one of the year’s best.”— Christopher Verleger, Lambda Literary

“A beautifully written and well-paced comic sci-fi extravaganza, a true page turner yet pregnant with deep social and human insight. . . . Take this book to heart: it will absorb you, change you, and—in the clincher of the last sentence—move you to tears.”—Richard Canning, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide

“It is abundantly clear that Smith mixed the funny with the sad in Remembrances of Things I Forgot, and he has literally turned that ‘genre of life’ into a tangible reflection of the time it takes for humans to forget their life experiences, big and small, sweet and sorrowful; and in the end how remembrance of all things could actually change the world.”—Tony Hobday, QSaltLake

“Bob Smith aims high and succeeds.”—Band of Thebes

From the Publisher

Both Jack Finney and Kurt Vonnegut are name-checked here, and if you can imagine them having a baby, it will give you the general idea.…To Smith's credit…he sews a few threads of the sublime through the wilder farce. Were the focus only on politics, this would be little more than a skit that runs on too long. But in addition to all the Bush bash and Cheney chicanery, John is given a much more personal goal as he travels back in time: to prevent the early, alcoholic death of his father and the even earlier suicide of his beloved sister. When the world of the book is reduced to the shape of a family, Smith's writing truly hits home.
—The Washington Post

David Levithan