I figured out the plot relatively early in the story, and had it confirmed by my friend who lent it to me: the main character gets complete and unrelenting amnesia, and eventually has a memory transplant, which gives him back a life. A life, not his life. Interesting enough. Sounds more sci-fi than anything else, but this is serious fiction, and serious fiction suffers when the story gets lost in the prose. And that's exactly what happened here.