MixedSeven DaysDolores Extract No. 1 is a fresh-faced, inquisitive 19-year-old. Early in the novel, she reveals that her self-given name is Elsie, after a character in the 1922 silent film The Toll of the Sea. In many ways, Elsie fits the character type of the \'shopgirl\' common in fiction of her era. She\'s an individuating young woman absorbing what the city has to offer — clothes, movies, a flat to call her own ... What sometimes feels like a relentless onslaught of exposition becomes more tolerable as Elsie\'s character is fleshed out as someone who constantly finds new understanding. Aware of herself and the societal limitations that threaten her freedom, she becomes a scientist of both herself and Memhood at large. This evolution echoes the decolonizing impulse of auto-ethnography ... MEM offers a powerful argument that what makes us human is not just our memories — for better and for worse — but also our powers of self-determination.
