Book 6: Still Alice by Lisa Genova tells the story of Harvard professor Alice Howland's descent into dementia as the result of early on-set Alzheimer's disease. This was quite an emotional read for me because of my family history--my great grandmother and grandma both succumbed to this disease, and my mother also has neurological problems.
Genova has PhD in neuroscience, and she makes the choice to tell the story from Alice's point-of-view, which beautifully and realistically captures the frustration and fear of someone with memory loss. There were times that it got so real for me that I had to put it down, but I still wanted to see how things progressed. Genova does a great job of showing the progression of the illness. In one scene at the beginning of the book, Alice is reflecting on how she carefully eats an ice cream cone to avoid getting ice cream on her hands. Then, in a later scene, Alice is with her husband eating ice cream together. He asks her if she's ready to leave. She tells him no. Then, showing him her ice cream cone with streams of melted ice cream dripping onto her hands, she tells him that she's not finished finished with her ice cream yet. That kind of framing makes the story so real.
Bottom line: It's an excellent read if you know someone suffering from Alzheimer's or if it's in your family history. Even if you don't know someone, it's still eye-opening and really hits close to home.
No comments:
Post a Comment