Summary: The impetus to create a memory palace is ordinary enough in “887.” Robert Lepage (narrating from mostly autobiographical experience) is having trouble memorizing a poem he has been asked to recite, so he uses the mnemonic technique whereby you conjure a place you know deep in your bones, perhaps a childhood home, associating different lines of text with different rooms. For him, that place is the apartment complex at 887 Murray Ave. in Quebec City, where he grew up.
