It’s 12:30 in the morning, and I find myself sitting on the couch with a huge pile of used Kleenex next to me. I’m usually responsible enough to put a book down when it’s getting late. Occasionally, though, a book needs to be read straight through – read with emotions, not with rationality. Lisa Genova’s “Still Alice,” is one of those books.
Alice is a 50-year-old celebrated professor of linguistics at Harvard when she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The reader travels with her down the path of mental illness, as her young, strong body is betrayed by the mind that is dying, one neuron at a time. Alice wants desperately to cling to her “me-ness,” the pieces of her that make her who she is – not her job, or her research, but the Alice that is left after those things are stripped away. She wants to still be important, still be a useful member of society.
My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.
This insider’s view of Alzheimer’s is painfully honest. It is heart-wrenching to watch how family members are affected by Alice’s illness, and some of the choices they make left me questioning how I would react if this were my spouse or my parent. But in the midst of grieving for Alice and her loss, there is an undercurrent of love, of strength and hope. Alice is a fighter, and she’s not going down without a fight. She’s not going to let people forget that she is still Alice.
There is no happy ending for an Alzheimer’s patient, and this book isn’t one to pretty up the reality to make for a better story. Read it with your Kleenex handy, you’re going to need it.
Guest blogger Emily Simmons is an avid reader, mother of four, and author of parentingfrontline.blogspot.com. She currently resides in Provo, Utah.
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
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Tags: Alzheimers, Harvard, Illness, Marriage
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