Jonathan Weiner, a Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of science journalism, is “The Memory Man” in his family. His brother Eric, a creator of Dora the Explorer, is not. Weiner, a professor of science journalism, explores the ways in which autobiographical memory—from “highly superior” to “severely deficient,” “relentless remembering” to dry, factual recall—affect our sense of self over time. As with “Double Exposure,” his excellent essay about childhood amnesia, Weiner tests his own boundaries, finding a neuropsychologist to run a memory test on himself and his brother.
On the morning of Friday, September 19, a gentle, sunny, late-summer morning—it happened to be the anniversary of our father’s death—I went out on my terrace to take a set of memory tests. Eric was planning to take the same tests at his place, not many blocks away. The tests came from Levine, who has now been studying autobiographical memory for 30 years. He was eager to explore our case, he told me. “It’s scientifically interesting for me,” he said. “You know, two brothers, and both writers. So similar, yet so different. It’s quite interesting.”
Six great reads about memory
When Your Digital Life Vanishes
“A broken phone or corrupted drive can mean the loss of work, evidence, art, or the last traces of the dead. But sometimes data-recovery experts can summon lost files from the void.”
When Dementia Steals the Imagination of a Children’s Book Writer
“Robert Munsch wrote ‘The Paper Bag Princess,’ ‘Love You Forever’ and other classics by performing them over and over for kids. But his stories are slipping away.”
One Step Removed from Ash
“I am still afraid of forgetting. There is much I have already forgotten.”
What I Inherited from My Criminal Great-Grandparents
“In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure.”
Active Recall
“As of his sixth birthday next month, he will have 2,462 seconds, his entire life compressed as I wanted to remember it, into approximately 41 minutes.”
Double Exposure
“On our first memories.”
