Michael Thompson's Memorable Debut - 'How to be Remembered'

Former journalist and current co-host of one of Australia’s highest ranked podcasts, Michael Thompson, joins Writer’s Voices from Sydney, Australia, to discuss his debut novel, How To Be Remembered. Part speculative fiction, part magical realism, How To Be Remembered tells the remarkable story of Tommy Llewellyn, a boy who is forgotten by everyone he knows on the same day each year. Thompson explains, “The premise is fairly simple and that is basically that it is about a young man named Tommy and every year, on the same day, his birthday, everybody who knows him forgets that he exists and he just has to basically start again. He remembers everyone but everyone who knows him, his family, his friends, everyone, he’s wiped in their minds and all evidence of what he’s done over the last year is gone and so he just has to start with a blank slate every year… the book is about him, essentially, trying to have what the rest of us take for granted in terms of a family, relationships, a job, the absolute basics of what we can go out and do, but he can’t because of this thing that happens every year… just picture an ordinary person in an ordinary life in an ordinary town and just one extraordinary thing is happening to him…”

The initial idea for this book came from Thompson’s previous thoughts of social media and the content people post everyday, such as comments, photos, and stories. Sometimes what they think is a good idea to share ends up being a regret and they delete those photos and posts, in hopes that others will forget what they just divulged to the world. Thompson then went on to consider what if the opposite happened. He thought, “What if somebody just wanted to be remembered and they were unable to be because of something being, something that prevented that from happening and it just kept on happening, constantly, and that if it built up enough that they’re able to establish a bit of a life for themselves, across a year, and then it reset. I thought, ‘oh that sounds pretty tragic! That sounds like a pretty good story.’” While the book starts off quite grim and is filled with many heartbreaking moments, Thompson says, “It’s actually a very hopeful, very positive, very optimistic, kind of story… It is a love story, after all. This is the thing… love is the motivator, really. There is a lot of acceptance for what Tommy is going through and love is the thing that pushes him to go, ‘ok, I’m going to find a way around this. I’m gonna try and fix this,’ and that’s kind of where it all takes off.”