My father had transient global amnesia, a rare condition about which we still know little. People who have headaches seem more prone to these lapses, and there might be a family propensity. The problem is simply too rare—and fleeting—to have been studied much. You cannot, in fact, be officially diagnosed with this ailment unless a mental health professional examines you in the middle of an instance of memory loss.
Dad’s first episode occurred during a public lecture. He was doing one of those, “make science accessible” presentations to a general audience, and between one notecard and the next, his whole mental canvas went blank. He had no idea who he was, what the notes on the cards were about, where he was, or what he was doing in front of all those people.
He was quite alert and articulate throughout.
He never gave another public lecture, but he did have more memory lapses. Like Lord Julian, when the bout of forgetting ended, he could recall his mental peregrinations, and no part of the memory loss was permanent or even long term. He’d be at sea for a few hours at most—completely at sea, did not recognize the home he’d dwelled in for decades or the woman he’d been married to for half a century—and then he’d be fine again.
In most other respects, Dad was cognitively with it until he peacefully expired in the 97th year of his age. His ailment has haunted me, because Dad relied almost exclusively on his mental powers to go forward in life. He was a bench scientist with a gift for experimental design. Asking “elegant questions” was his jam, and yet, later in life, along came this vexing conundrum of a mental illness.
So of course, I’m putting the condition in a book, where my readers can puzzle over it with me. Julian is quite young to have transient global amnesia, but he’s also been through a war, so maybe he’s just special, or specially cursed.
His next adventure, A Gentleman of Dubious Reputation, will introduce us to Julian’s ducal brother, and to a few more secrets lurking in Julian’s past. Excerpt below! Book Three—A Gentleman in Challenging Circumstances—is also available for pre-order.
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Happy reading!
Grace Burrowes
Read on for an excerpt from A Gentleman of Dubious Reputation!