AUTUMN VS. I’M NOT SAM

Autumn Leaves Asks Some Hard Hitting Questions about Touch and Identity as They Are Represented in I’m Not Sam.

TITLE: I’m Not Sam

AUTHORS: Jack Ketchum & Lucky McKee

GENRE: Horror

PAGES: 175

 PRICE: Ebook $2.99, Paperback $35.99, Hardcover $50.00

For such a short book, only 175 pages and made up of two short stories, I’m Not Sam, and its sequel, Who’s Lily, there is a lot to unpack here. I could probably write several reviews of this work and not touch on the same topic/theme twice. For this blog, I am concerned with the power of touch and when it is or is not appropriate to use it.

A very brief synopsis: after a night of romance and passion, Patrick wakes to find that his wife of nearly a decade, Samantha (Sam), has become someone else in her mind. She looks the same, but her entire personality has gone missing somehow and has been replaced with that of a child named Lily. Patrick can find no answers from doctors. No one seems to know why Sam turned into Lily or if Sam will ever be herself again. Patrick, a graphic novel illustrator, is desperate to get his wife back and believes that their connection through touch may be his only hope of bringing Sam back to her body.

I was curious as to what other people may think of Sam’s beliefs, so I posed the question on the Facebook profile: if you woke up one day to find that your partner had become someone else in their mind, specifically a child, what would you think of using touch to try to bring them back to who they really are?

Those who provided me with answers to my question regarding the ethics of using touch in this case seemed to agree that it would be inappropriate to use touch with your partner if your partner’s mind had either regressed back to childhood or if they were showing symptoms of multiple personality disorder.

I don’t disagree with them, but I also understand why Patrick does choose to use touch to bring Sam back. Patrick and Sam’s most powerful connection and ways of expressing love seemed to be through touch and physical intimacy, something they both crave from each other and it is a powerful bond. Additionally, to Patrick, Sam is still Sam, his wife. He believes she has had some sort of psychological snap which will eventually end. He starts to see little signs of the real Sam coming through, gestures, ways of looking at things, the kinds of things a devoted partner would recognize.

I see Patrick as desperate. He has done all he can for his wife to bring her true identity back. He had taken her to a doctor and Sam had an MRI. The test and the doctor confirmed there was no physical cause of Sam becoming Lily and that it was possible, even likely, that the real Sam may show up again, just as suddenly. He cares for Sam as Lily. He becomes so desperate that he even dresses Sam/Lily up in her wedding dress and shows her their wedding video. It seems that it may have worked…until it is clear that it did not. Lily was fuming and ransacked their entire home.

Patrick’s desperate choice to use touch to bring Sam back is certainly a divisive one, but it is one I can empathize with, even if I don’t really agree that it was the appropriate thing to do. I loved Patrick’s character and I believe he acted out of love and, once again, extreme desperation to get his loving wife back.

Autumn Leaves is a Canadian author and poet. Her poem “Siren’s Song” was published when she was 15. Autumn is in love with the dark and has an affinity for all things horrific and disturbing. Autumn is also an avid horror reader and book reviewer. Her favorite author is Jack Ketchum. She lives with her children and army of fur babies on a small island off the coast of Maine.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.