About: That Reminds Me (novel)

That Reminds Me is the debut novel of British author and podcaster Derek Owusu, published in 2019 by Merky books, a Penguin imprint launched by Stormzy and Penguin Random House UK. A Bildungroman, the novel takes place in the British countryside and in London and traces the childhood, adolescence and young adulthood of its first-person narrator, "K", and deals with the themes of identity, family, trauma, mental health, masculinity and racism. Owusu started writing the novel while he was in a mental health facility and because he wanted to understand the build-up of a mental breakdown. While there are superficial similarities between Owusu’s life and that of his protagonist, the novel is not autobiographical. Owusu himself described the character of K as something like an “alter ego”.