55 pages • 1 hour read
Megan LallyThat's Not My Name
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Geographical Context: Rural Oregon
That’s Not My Name takes place primarily in two small Oregon towns: Washington City and Alton. Washington City is where Drew lives, and Alton is the even smaller town a few hours north where Wayne Boone’s cabin is located. These two fictional towns are connected by the Willamette River, a real river that flows for just under two hundred miles through northwest Oregon, between the Cascade Range and the Oregon Coastal Range. A majority of Oregon’s population lives along this river or nearby, in the Willamette Valley. Although the Willamette Valley is home to the large city of Portland, other cities and towns in the area are more sparsely populated. The Willamette Valley is known for its dense forests, rivers, and large tracts of agricultural land. Because of the region’s geography, the small towns that dot the valley and the foothills of the two bordering mountain ranges tend to be quite isolated from one another.
Isolated locations such as these are often used in thrillers to create a tense, foreboding atmosphere: There is a sense that characters are trapped and cut off from outside sources of assistance. In That’s Not My Name, the small towns of Washington City and Alton establish such an atmosphere and also help support the theme of The Dangers of Isolation. Drew is trapped in a town where the local police and community harass him over his perceived role in Lola’s disappearance, and Madison is trapped with her kidnapper in a fishing cabin outside an even more remote little town.
Medical Context: Amnesia
Amnesia refers to memory loss, often as a result of injury, illness, or psychological trauma. This memory loss can be temporary or permanent. Amnesia can be “anterograde” or “retrograde.” In anterograde amnesia, a person is unable to form new memories. In retrograde amnesia, a person loses access to previous memories. Retrograde amnesia can be “localized”—a person with no memory of the hours immediately before and after a car accident, for instance—or “generalized”—such as a person with no memory at all of their own past and identity. A person with generalized amnesia can usually still remember basic information about the rest of the world—they do not forget how to brush their teeth, the name of their country’s president, or what color “brown” is. Their personalities, skills, and preferences are unchanged. This is because there are different kinds of memories, stored and retrieved in different ways. Generalized retrograde amnesia usually affects what is called “autobiographic memory.” This kind of amnesia often resolves on its own, over a period of weeks or months, unless it is a result of permanent physical changes in the brain.
In That’s Not My Name, Madison Perkins has generalized retrograde amnesia as a result of a head injury and emotional trauma. Although head injuries are often associated with localized amnesia, they very rarely cause generalized amnesia. Madison’s memory loss has an additional cause, however—the trauma of being kidnapped and held hostage by Wayne Boone. In a situation like this, people can develop “dissociative” amnesia as a psychological defense. Generalized dissociative retrograde amnesia is most common among people who have experienced extreme violence.
Amnesia is a popular device in fiction, particularly in the mystery/suspense/thriller genres. There is a natural terror associated with the idea of parts of one’s own memory being inaccessible, because it calls into question the reliability of one’s own mind and the certainty of one’s own identity. A character’s amnesia also allows authors to delay the delivery of important clues and information, increasing suspense. Some popular thrillers for adult readers that use this trope are Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train, Tana French’s In the Woods, Amy Tintera’s Listen for the Lie, Chris Bohjalian’s The Flight Attendant, and Alice Feeney’s Sometimes I Lie. Young adult thrillers that feature amnesia include Caleb Roehrig’s White Rabbit, April Henry’s The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die, Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Don’t Look Back, and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.
