The Persistence of Memory and vendre Other Stories by Maher, Jan NEUF

A dozen stories featuring characters aged 4 to 94, each dealing in some way with how and why our memories shape our current crises. Included in the collection: in the days just after World War II, a young girl tries to remember the man being introduced to her as her father; an academic denied tenure remembers how to land on her feet; a couple on their way to divorce think about the things that once drew them together and then drove them apart; an elderly man struggles to recall where the bathroom is and why his wife has been replaced by a stranger; a newly widowed grandmother remembers the joy of finger painting and answering to no one; and the title story, in which a great-grandmother proves that you never forget how to make a bicycle go even if you may need a crash course in how to stop one.