The Impossible Knife of Memory-featuring calculus, PTSD, and zombies (in a sense)-is a hard-hitting look into the way our pasts and private lives affect our day-to-day behavior. Hayley Kincain, the main character, is having to care for her father while trying to survive a new school. Her father is a war veteran suffering from PTSD, and Hayley has lived most of her life on the road, trying to escape from the ghosts that torment her dad on a daily basis. The story begins after Hayley and her dad return to her father’s hometown, where Hayley lived with her grandmother while her dad was overseas. Hoping fond childhood memories will drown out her father’s trauma, she agrees to attend a new school for her senior year as long as her dad tries to find and keep a job. At school, Hayley struggles with calculus and fitting in. Calculus because she doesn’t see why she needs to know it, and fitting in because it seems like no one else has gone through what she has. One day at a time, Hayley tries to balance her crumbling home life with all the pressure and expectation of school. When her childhood friend Grace introduces her to Finn, the sole resurrector of the school newspaper, she is baffled at his ability to dream of the future, while she and her father remain stuck in the past.
The book is a roller coaster of funny commentaries on high school from Hayley’s perspective mixed with many downturns into serious issues. According to Hayley, freaks and zombies figure prominently at high school. She proudly claims to be a freak, the superior species, while most other people are zombies. The zombies laugh too loudly, and shove, trip, shout, or chase their way through the halls of the school, threatening to consume a freak’s brain in a moment of vulnerability. This metaphor is perfect, because it shows Hayley’s personal bias while also capturing the prevailing high school mentality of survival in a sea of isolation.
The darker aspects of the book offer important insight into going through troubled times, especially with family. Usually these are centered around Hayley’s problems with her dad, or her friends’ issues in their own lives. Hayley’s dad loves her, and wants the best for her, but because of his PTSD he is not always capable of being there for her. Oftentimes Hayley is the one who has to take care of him. Hayley has a difficult time with trust after her father’s girlfriend walked out on them when she was younger. This translates directly to her social interactions at school, though she soon discovers that each of her friends deals with his or her own issues at home. Grace, her boyfriend Topher, and Finn are also trying to survive high school without becoming zombies. Hayley’s realization that her troubles aren’t so unique proves pivotal to her ability to survive and thrive.
This book is not a story of finding a real family, or falling in love, or going on a life-changing adventure. It is about a girl whose entire existence is consumed by her past, and how her understanding of the present is shaped by those around her. It is also about how everyone is haunted by “the impossible knife of memory” and that all people are being forced to balance past and future while living in the now. Without giving away the exciting conclusion, Hayley must ultimately confront the past, and she realizes she is not so different from the zombies she had always despised.