ALICEHEIMER'S: Alzheimer's Through the Looking Glass by Dana Walrath
Penn State University Press (April 15, 2016)
“Alice was always beautiful—Armenian immigrant beautiful, with thick, curly black hair, olive skin, and big dark eyes,” writes Dana Walrath. Alice also has Alzheimer’s, and while she can remember all the songs from The Music Man, she can no longer attend to the basics of caring for herself. Alice moves to live with her daughter, Dana, in Vermont, and the story begins.
Aliceheimer’s is a series of illustrated vignettes, daily glimpses into their world with Alzheimer’s. Walrath’s time with her mother is marked by humor and clarity: “With a community of help that included pirates, good neighbors, a cast of characters from space-time travel, and my dead father hovering in the branches of the maple trees that surround our Vermont farmhouse, Aliceheimer’s let us write our own story daily—a story that, in turn, helps rewrite the dominant medical narrative of aging.”
“A deeply moving, informative, and funny memoir by a woman watching her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease. The collaged drawings are a perfect counterpoint to the writing.” —Roz Chast, author of Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
