When What the Heart Remembers is pitched to the movie moguls--and surely it should be--it will definitely fit in the "high concept" category. When a person receives a heart transplant, does that recipient take on some of the memories, characteristics, attitudes of the original owner? Very heady stuff, and the exact scenario posited in Debra Ginsberg's (The Neighbors Are Watching) exploration of love. It's about being attentive to dreams and listening, always listening, to one's own heart--however long you've had it.
Eden Harrison needs a heart transplant. Her fiancé, Derek, cares for her while she is waiting for a heart to be found and when she recuperates after surgery. Then life becomes complicated: Eden has terrible nightmares about a mountain road in a deluge, pulls away from Derek's attentions and, finally, breaks the engagement. She has always loved the misty skies and softening effect of the Portland, Ore., weather--but now she's inexorably drawn to the sunny climes of San Diego.
She takes a job in a restaurant that seems somehow familiar to her, where she meets a frequent customer named Darcy. Darcy is a gorgeous, wealthy young widow but she is also friendless and alone, still brooding over the fact that she allowed her husband to abuse her physically. She zeroes in on Eden and invites her to live with her. The psychological suspense is heightened on every page as these two women play a push-me/pull-you game: How much they can trust one another? How much can either tell the other? Most importantly, what does Darcy want from Eden?
Questions multiply regarding what happened to Darcy's husband--and her lover--but what Eden wants to know is: Whose heart does she have? Ginsberg keeps the reader guessing through a series of events, Eden's recurring dreams and Darcy's peculiar behavior. In a carefully crafted ending, there are answers for Eden--about Darcy, the reader can only guess. Psychologically taut, alternately menacing and benign, What the Heart Remembers is an entirely believable story of one possessed, but by whom or what? --Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: A heart transplant brings with it the essence of the donor, creating havoc in the life of the recipient.