»A short-term effect?

Reading the Vintage Book of Amnesia, edited by Jonathan Lethem (whose Motherless Brooklyn I loved; unhappily, I haven't enjoyed any of this other books, excepting the fantastical, short, and tortuous The Shape We're In).

Aside from the beautiful "Nightmare" by Shirley Jackson and the whopping six-page story by Donald Bartheleme, many of the stories disappoint me, including Lethem's own contribution. An essay by neurologist Oliver Sacks discusses the physioloigical underpinnings of amnesia while describing the sad case of "The Last Hippie."