When I forgot

the long version

"Alone in a Helsinki café, Anna, a young journalist, spends a day drinking coffee and reading a novel about three women on a single day in different time periods. The book, a gift from her professor and now lover, an American named Ian, becomes a lens through which Anna can view her own life. The story intertwines the splintered childhood of Anna and her mentally ill brother with the troubled past of Ian and his father, a Vietnam vet. Finnish protests against the invasion of Iraq provide the contemporary backdrop and portray the post-September 11, anti-American perspective"--From publisher description.