[2][4] The novel was written in 1963 and was shopped to publishers by Westlake's then-agent, Scott Meredith, but none of them bought it despite editors praising the novel.

[6] Hard Case Crime bought Memory in 2009,[7][8] then believed to be Westlake's final unpublished manuscript,[9] and published it in 2010.

[2] The novel was adapted into the upcoming film The Actor, directed by Duke Johnson and starring André Holland as lead character Paul Cole.

[11] On February 24, 2021, Deadline reported that Ryan Gosling had signed on to star in The Actor, with Duke Johnson directing a screenplay he wrote with Stephen Cooney, based on Donald E. Westlake's novel Memory.

[12] On October 18, 2022, Spencer said in an interview with the website The Retaility that the film was in pre-production in Budapest with André Holland and Gemma Chan as the leads.