The Monkey in the Mirror by Ian Tattersall, Harcourt Brace, $25, ISBN 0151005206
MEMORIES, good and bad, lie dormant in our minds until something triggers their recall. For me, a disagreeable memory from my schooldays is triggered by a single word, “essay”. It meant finding the next clean page in my book and copying a dreaded title from the blackboard. It was usually something uninspiring: “The best day of my life” or “My favourite holiday”. Even today, just seeing the word essay is enough to bring back the anxiety of having to cover pages and pages with writing in an…
