The Raw Shark Texts

"What's even worse, what drives me sick is this: none of the things I think I remember about her are all-the-way true or complete. I'm already losing her to generalizations, the endless Chinese-whispering of memory. I'd written a sort of journal while we'd been away and even reading through it for the first time I could see how full of holes it was. We were never that cool or that witty. We didn't say things in just the right way all the time, or even a quarter of the time. There's nothing in there about how Clio could sometimes be unkind or about how easily she could lie to people if she thought it was better for them not to know things. There's nothing about the times when she wasn't funny or sexy, or when she talked too much or about her pissing or shitting. There's no way to preserve a person when they're gone and that's because whatever you write down it's not the truth, it's just a story. Stories are all we're ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles."

Steven Hall - The Raw Shark Texts