The Binding

The Binding is set in a fantasy world where binders have the power to erase bad memories from clients who want to forget.  It took me awhile before I figured this out as our protagonist began his apprenticeship working on actual book binding covers. For some, being able to forget a traumatic event is a godsend. For our protagonist Emmett Farmer, his binding caused tremendous confusion and illness.  The story is written in three parts. The first part shows Emmet's current situation. The second delves into the past and shows how he ended up being sent away by his family.  The third part takes the story forward into his future and the resolution of the plot.

The book begins with teenager Emmett Farmer working in the fields of his family's farm.  A letter arrives that summons him to an apprenticeship as a bookbinder. This vocation arouses fear and superstition in his small community.  However, his parents feel that he cannot afford to refuse the offer.  He has been ill in the past year and the illness has caused the family to be embarrassed by his symptoms.  His father has difficulty understanding how this happened to Emmett because he had kept a pure home.  

Emmett has always been attracted to books, even though they are strictly forbidden.  His bookbinding master, Seredith, tells him that bookbinding is a sacred calling and that he was born to be a binder.  Under this old woman's watchful eye, Emmett learns how to hand-craft elegant leatherbound volumes. Each volume will capture a memory.  If you want to forget something, a binder can help you erase it.  The binders then place the memory inside a book, which the binders always store in a vault owned by the binder.  After Emmett has settled in his new occupation he discovers that one of the books in the vault has his name on it.  He has no idea that he was ever bound or what memory could have been erased from his mind.

This book was amazing.  It has parts of magic and gay coming-of-age that I normally don't like reading about but I could not stop reading this book.  The imaginary past of an alternate England in the 1700s was somewhat difficult for me to grasp.  Fantasy is not a genre that I read and it took some getting used to.  The idea that you can have someone erase a traumatic memory is appealing to me.  If binders were real, I might visit one.  To be technical, The Binding seemed sort of the "don't ask, don't tell" scenario currently playing out in the U. S.  When parents have their kid's memories erased, they leave their children with a sense that they have done something wrong but cannot be absolved of their wrong-doing. This cannot be comfortable for those who have been bound.

4 out of 5 stars.