Memory Man

“The hit was the only thing he had never remembered. Ironic, since it was the catalyst for his never forgetting anything else.” 

The defining moment of Decker’s life is the accident on the football field that altered his brain. It changed his personality and his relationship to reality, yet he can’t remember it. 

“He was getting by, barely. But barely was all he needed. Because barely was all he was now.” 

This comment is another reference to Decker’s assessment of his diminished chances of survival. Without his family to ground him, he isn’t even sure that he exists. 

“For Decker, who was deeply influenced by color in everything, it seemed the only one left in the world right now was gray.” 

This is an early reference to Decker’s changed experience of color. Color no longer acts as a visual impression but as an encapsulation of a psychological state. 

“‘Looks can be deceiving. And I want you involved. You see things. I mean, you see things, Amos.’” 

Miller’s comment about Decker isn’t simply an observation about his enhanced memory skills. At this point, Miller doesn’t yet know about Decker’s condition. Miller’s observation is related more to Decker’s dogged persistence and ability to notice small details that others miss.

“‘Amos, we need closure. You understand that.’ […] ‘I understand it, if only because I never got it.’” 

Miller wants Decker on the Mansfield shooting case to offer closure to the victims’ families. Decker himself never received closure, so Decker’s reply indicates his own psychological need to create closure for someone else. 

 “He had built convictions from small details that most overlooked, including, most significantly, the ones who had committed the crimes.” 

Perfect memory isn’t Decker’s only advantage as an investigator. Decker notices details that even the killers overlook. These details are often the kind that solve cases.

“Motive. It always began with that, because motive was just another way of saying, Why would you do something like this?” 

Decker’s total recall is repeatedly hampered because he doesn’t know the motive for the murders. Once he understands Wyatt’s thought process, everything falls into place for him. 

“‘It didn’t bring everything back to me […] Because it never left me.’” 

In a conversation with Jamison, Decker explains the difference between Decker’s brain and everyone else’s. The downside of Decker’s gift is that he can recall the specific details of everything that has ever happened to him, including the murder of his family. Decker’s memories do not dull over time

"For him death was blue, while white represented despair. When he looked at himself in the mirror for a full year after his family's murders, he had figured he was the whitest white man in the whole world."

Decker’s altered experience of color is once more expressed in this quote. Colors have emotional resonance. Blue and white evoke the strongest feelings in him. 

“There seemed to be nothing good out in that blackness. But to Decker the night was suddenly full of threes, his least favorite number.” 

As with colors, Decker’s brain processes numbers differently. They, too, have emotional resonance. “Threes” evoke a negative emotional response as well as full-blown hallucinations. 

“He stopped walking, leaned against a tree, closed his eyes, dialed up his mental DVR, and replayed everything he had seen in the Watsons’ house.” 

This is an example of the technique Decker employs to recall significant events. The mechanical nature of a DVR is a good analogy for the methodical way in which Decker keeps his memory in check

“‘I’ve worked cases long enough to know that it’s the one thing you let pass that ends up holding the answer you need.’” 

Decker doesn’t take details for granted. His eye for detail is often a more useful skill than his perfect memory. 

“He never forgot anything, but that didn’t mean everything was always placed in the proper context opposite either a complementary or conflicting fact.” 

Decker’s memory of disrespecting someone eludes him for most of the novel because he hasn’t applied the proper context to the fact. Once Decker understands the context, he immediately recalls the related event.

“What did interest him was the possibility of two men from very different backgrounds coming together at just the right moment and forming a partnership that would lead to the slaughter of so many people.” 

Decker is talking about Truman Capote’s book, but his observation here is a perfect description of Wyatt and Leopold. Wyatt would never have dreamed of taking revenge if Leopold hadn’t planted the seed. 

“‘You didn’t choose to have your family murdered, Decker.’ ‘I think the man who did it believed the choice was all mine.’” 

Decker’s hunch is correct. In Wyatt’s twisted version of reality, Decker’s choice to become a cop is what dooms his family. Wyatt believes that all cops are bad cops, and that all football players are bad people.

“‘It’s like a picture that never, ever fades. Some people can’t go back? I really can’t go forward.’” 

Decker’s inner DVR allows him to replay any event from his past. The result is so vivid that the memory remains a reality. In this sense, Decker can’t escape to a life beyond his memories. 

“With a perfect memory did not come a perfect mind, or resolute decisions. Sometimes with perfection on one end of the equation, one was left with stark imprecision on the other.” 

While the loss of forgetfulness is one curse of a perfect memory, the other curse is an overreliance on the power itself. A perfect memory cannot solve all problems. 

 “‘Not invisible. Innocuous […] Someone so commonplace that no one notices them even though they’re there.’” 

This quote refers to the killers’ ability to hide in plain sight. Both Wyatt and Leopold can appear harmless. This is worse than invisibility because it encourages trust from a potential victim. 

“‘Small things tend to lead to big results. People don’t mess up on the big details. They fall down on the small ones.’” 

Decker echoes his earlier conviction that killers make tiny mistakes, not big ones. Decker’s own ability to catch these tiny errors allows him to solve big crimes.

“People paired together could do things unimaginable to each of them acting alone.” 

Decker is thinking about Capote’s book again. Decker has begun to understand the direct parallel between the characters in that book and the two killers that Decker is chasing. 

“They were bound by their conditions. They were connected by their histories, their paths crossing at a traumatic point in their lives.” 

Decker and Wyatt are bound by their shared condition as manufactured savants. Wyatt’s traumatized mental state causes her to take their bond one step further. Wyatt sees Decker as one of her attackers because, in her mind, all cops are bad.

“Gray […] it was a confusing color. It lent itself to no particular interpretation […] Leopold was yellow. Yellow was not ambivalent. Yellow was hostile, cunning.” 

Decker sees Wyatt as the color gray. His interpretation of the color echoes Wyatt’s own gender confusion. Leopold’s cunning nature is concealed for much of the novel, but the color Decker assigns him is accurate. 

“Apparently his perfect mind had flaws, because this memory, while always there, had not made an impression on him.” 

Once more, Decker points out the limitations of perfect memory. It is pointless to recall facts without context.