The Collector

Summary

A frightening dystopian horror novel in which grief is forbidden and purged from the mind

Sorrow is inefficient. It’s also inescapable.

Lieutenant Dev Singh dutifully spends his days recording the memories of people who, struck with incurable depression, will soon have their minds erased in order to be more productive members of society.

At night though, hidden in the dark, Dev remembers and writes in his secret journal the special moments shared with him—the small laugh of a toddler, the stillness of a late afternoon, the first flutter of love. But when the Bureau finds out that he has been recounting the memories—and that the depression is in him too—he is sent to a sanitarium to heal. After all, the Bureau knows what’s best for you.

A nightmarish descent from sadness to madness, The Collector is a nightmarish mix of 1984 and Never Let Me Go.