Review: Recursion

Recursion by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading ‘Dark Matter’ last year, I was looking forward to reading ‘Recursion’. Quite clearly this was a much-awaited book, judging by all the reviews.

‘Recursion’ lives up to the expectations – a great & unique story built atop non-contradictory & even plausible time science. It sets a rollicking pace right from the start and keeps up the tempo right till the end. I read ‘The Order of Time’ by Carlo Rovelli a few months back, and that helped me appreciate the science behind the story better. I would certainly recommend reading that to get a more in-depth appreciation of the science in ‘Recursion’.

NYPD detective Barry Sutton receives a distress call and finds Ann Peters Voss set to jump off a building to end her life. She is plagued by False Memory Syndrome (FMS), a strange affliction which creates false memories of events which could not have happened and are torturous. The number of people afflicted seems to be growing, and the reasons are unclear. Barry is also coming to terms with a difficult personal life, being separated from his wife after their daughter passes away in a tragic accident. Helena Smith is a neuroscientist who has made remarkable progress in understanding memory, her mother being afflicted with dementia makes this a personal quest. Both Barry & Helena, in their own way, understand that there is more to FMS than meets the eye and they may have to intervene to avoid a human catastrophe.

The story is engrossing right from the start. Other than credible science, it is interspersed with important philosophical questions introduced in a subtle way as part of the narrative. I think there is just a little too much recursion towards the later parts of the book, but hey – maybe this story required it, and it does end nicely.

As it is, modern lifestyles deprive us of adequate sleep, and books like ‘Recursion’ don’t help! 😊.

If you liked ‘Dark Matter’, you will certainly enjoy this as well. As for me, I need to read all of Blake Crouch’s books!


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