From bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates a taut & fascinating novel that examines the mysteries of human memory & personality In 1965 a young research scientist named Margot Sharpe meets Elihu Hoopes the subject of her study a handsome amnesiac who cannot remember anything beyond the last seventy seconds Over the course of thirty years the two embark on mirroring journeys of self-discovery Margot enthralled by her charming mysterious & deeply lonely patient as well as her officious supervisor attempts to unlock Eli's shuttered memories of a childhood trauma without losing her own sense of identity in the process & Eli haunted by memories of an unknown girl's body underneath the surface of a lake pushes to finally know himself once again despite potentially devastating consequences As Margot & Eli meet over & over again Joyce Carol Oates' tightly written nearly clinical prose propels the lives of these two characters forwards both suspended in a dream-like shadowy present & seemingly balanced on the thinnest sharpest of lines between past & future Made vivid by Oates' eye for detail & searing insight into the human psyche The Man Without a Shadow is an eerie ambitious & structurally complex novel as poignant as it is thrilling