In the current information age, "memory" is as likely to be an attribute of a computer as a human being. In Graywolf Forum The Business of Memory, editor Charles Baxter invites twelve creative writers to contemplate the externalization of what was once so deeply personal. The resulting essays address a provocative range of the explosion of interest in the memoir; the recovered-memory movement; America in the grip of an "amnesia plague;" the need for coherent stories of our past to help us organize our present; and forgetfulness—political, cultural, and literary—and the shame and allure it holds. Throughout, these fascinating pieces illuminate the art of remembering in a time when memory has become a highly measurable commodity. Charles Baxter Richard Bausch Karen Brennan Bernard Cooper Lydia Davis Steve Erickson Alvin Greenberg Patricia Hampl Margot Livesey James A. McPherson Victoria Morrow Michael Ryan Sylvia Watanabe
Author
Charles Baxter was born in Minneapolis and graduated from Macalester College, in Saint Paul. After completing graduate work in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he taught for several years at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he moved to the Department of English at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor and its MFA program. He now teaches at the University of Minnesota. Baxter is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works. His works of fiction include Believers , The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), Saul and Patsy , and Through the Safety Net . He lives in Minneapolis.
