The Cost of Remembering: An Introduction to An Ersatz Measure

An Ersatz Measure is now out in the world.

That still feels strange to say.

This book began with a question I didn’t know how to answer at the time:
What do we do when the thing we need most cannot be restored?

An ersatz measure is a substitute.
A stand-in.
Something that works well enough when the original is gone or unreachable.

But the word carries an unease with it. A quiet knowledge that the replacement is not the same as the thing it replaces, no matter how carefully it’s made.

This story lives in that space.

It isn’t about fixing what was broken.
It’s about what people choose to hold instead.

While writing the book, I kept circling the same tension:

When survival demands compromise, at what point does adaptation become loss?
And how do we tell the difference while we’re still inside it?

Some characters in An Ersatz Measure accept the substitute without hesitation.
Others resist it, even when resistance costs them dearly.
Most fall somewhere in between, making choices they can live with but not entirely justify.

That middle ground is where the story stayed with me the longest.

I’m curious what stayed with you.

• Was there a moment where you felt a character crossed a line they couldn’t return from?

• Did the idea of “good enough” feel comforting, unsettling, or both?

• Is there a place in the story where you wished someone had refused the substitute entirely?

I don’t think this book offers a single answer.
If anything, it asks whether answers are always the goal.

Sometimes, all we have is the measure we take in the dark and the hope that it holds.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please refer to the contact page.