The Memory Room Christopher Koch

Fans of koch s earlier work won t be disappointed but somehow the memory room never quite amounts to anything much.

The memory room christopher koch. It has glimmered in books he has written in the past such as highways to a war and it lies at the heart of his mesmerising new novel the memory room set in the last days of the cold war. Very large text size the mystique of secrecy has always fascinated christopher koch. Childhood friends vincent austin and erika lange are twin spirits. And vincent s secret room will remind koch readers of richard miller s red room in the doubleman 1985.

The story centres on three individuals working for australia s foreign affairs department derek bradley vincent austin and erika lange though vincent is working undercover as a spy. They share an obsession with the covert and the secret. Other recurring interests in koch s the memory room include androgyny psychosis chinese poetry the la vida es sueño motif the german romantic concept of the doppelgänger two faced female characters arcane knowledge and esoteric creeds to name a few. Set in tasmania china and canberra the memory room is the seventh novel by koch and is a psychological study of the motivation and consequences of one who chooses to live as a secret intelligence operative.

However this is by no means a conventional espionage thriller. Christopher koch s the memory room is a book that s hard to define.