Remembering it all too clearly

With eight months left in 2008, it might be premature to choose the weirdest book of the year...

With eight months left in 2008, it might be premature to choose the weirdest book of the year, but The Woman Who Can8217;t Forget, the memoir of 42-year-old California Jill Price, will be hard to beat. It poses the question8212;what would it be like to recall almost every day of your life since childhood?

Price first came to public attention in 2006 as 8220;AJ,8221; the pseudonymous subject of a paper in Neurocase entitled A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering. The lead author, James L. McGaugh, a professor of neurobiology at the University of California, spent five years bombarding Price with psychological, neurological and physiological tests. He coined a new term for her condition, 8220;hyperthymestic syndrome.8221; It means 8220;overdeveloped memory8221; of a particular kind. Price has no special aptitude for memorising words or numbers, facts, stories or languages. What she remembers8212;uncontrollably and with remarkable accuracy8212;is stuff that happened to her.

Price8217;s memory, 8220;shockingly complete8221; beginning in 1974, when she was 8, and 8220;near perfect8221; from 1980 on, appears to be organized like a diary. Given a date from the last 30 years, she can instantly summon up the day of the week, and some tidbit of biographical trivia. 8220;On Friday afternoon, October 19, 1979,8221; she writes, 8220;I came home from school and had some soup because it was unusually cold that day.8221; October 19, 1979, was, in fact, a Friday, cloudy with a high of 67 in LA.

McGaugh8212;who checked Price8217;s recollections against available documentation, including some 50,000 pages of her diaries8212;believes her abilities are real. 8220;She doesn8217;t fake it,8221; McGaugh says. 8220;If she doesn8217;t know, she says so.8217;8217; McGaugh points out that Price has extraordinary recall for news events. Does Aug. 16, 1977, mean anything to you? Price instantly recognized that as the date Elvis Presley died.

Price herself seems unable to decide if her ability is a blessing or a curse. 8220;I8217;m happy that I can remember so many episodes of so many TV shows, that I can revisit any given day and know what really happened to me that day.8221; But often her memories arise unbidden, troubling. 8220;Imagine being able to remember every fight you ever had with a friend, all the stupid mistakes you8217;ve ever made.8221;