How to Be Remembered is an ambitious first novel from the journalist and podcaster Michael Thompson. Its big-hearted conceit is constructed around Tommy, a boy whose entire existence is wiped from the memory of everyone who knows him each year on the fifth of January. Tommy – who is placed into a foster home on the morning of his first birthday when his parents wake to discover a child they don’t remember having crying in their lounge room – is raised (in a way) by Miss Michelle, who runs Milkwood House, colloquially known as the Dairy. Every year Tommy wakes in the Dairy, to an empty room, and descends the stairs rehearsing the script that will ingratiate him back into the lives of his former friends and carer. Surprisingly, that works.
Thompson seems to view these systems with a more hopeful eye than most – although Tommy’s childhood crush, Carey, is bullied severely enough at school that she attempts to take her own life, the home itself is relatively safe and loving. Miss Michelle is a soft, maternal figure in the vein of Matilda’s Miss Honey, making time to care for the emotional needs of her charges, and supplementing Tommy’s possessions each year using money from her own pocket. The children are largely friendly and respectful of one another as well, with the notable exception of the “weird” Richie, whose resentment towards Tommy remains even after he forgets him. This all makes for a reasonably peaceful adolescence for Tommy, despite the emotional burden of “the Reset”.
