Low Tide and Cape Cod Sun Set.

I picked this image for this book for actually more than one reason. The first reason, is because I made a blunder in that I forgot to photograph the copy of the book I got from the library. Another reason, is because there is a beautiful scene in the book of the main character swimming in these very waters, the waters of Cape Cod. The third reason, is because I find it symbolic of what the book is about in a way. What does the ocean become when you strip it of it’s layers and all the things that make it the majestic, force of nature that it is? What is left, when you pull the water off and back little by little? What becomes of the life and the living things it knows so well? Where does it go? Is it still itself as a flat damp sandbar? Or has it’s essence been altered? The author of this book asks these questions and more of human beings or one particular human being named Alice, in this book. If you take from Alice everything that Alice is, what is left? Alice remains Alice?

Alice, is a professor at Harvard, married to a brilliant doctor, with 3 children 2 of them perfect one perhaps a bit lost as far as life direction goes. That is what Alice would have told you had you asked her who she was at the start of the book. By the end of the book, she couldn’t recognize and remember who her own children are. Her job is over and her once brilliant mind can’t even always locate the toilet when she needs it in her house. Alice, has early onset Alzheimer’s. A tragic form of dementia that takes it’s victims piece by piece. We go through this difficult and tragic experience with Alice and her family.

This book, while none of us thought it was particularly well written, did speak strongly to us all. One of us is a nurse and many of us have parents and elderly relatives who have gone through this or some other form of dementia. We have watched them losing themselves bit by bit. Or we have watched those we care for at our work place go through it. Dementia, is part of the human condition. A tragedy most of us eventually experience as we age. But a bigger tragedy still, is to be in the prime of middle age and to begin this horrible process of losing yourself. We felt less alone with our struggles watching those in our lives struggle with dementia because Lisa Genova, wrote this book. We compared notes, explored our own experience together discussing a subject that society commonly seeks to sweep under the rug as bringing it out into the sunlight makes us all deeply uncomfortable. We found it a bit hallmark, which generally isn’t a good thing in writing in that it sets up the story and the main character and as soon as you have their number you already know where the story will end and the course it will take due to lazy writers or the innate laziness of nature. (For those of us who like creepy french dudes and their weird physics mechanics… Personally I prefer Hamilton’s mechanics cuz he was British and I can remember and properly pronounce his name…. But I digress… My apologies, I have spent the evening learning about 4 dimensional numbers from a spatula and a very bored physicist.) Where was I? Right! Lazy writers writing the plots of very bad movies with very predictable plots….. For me, such writing is generally not a good thing. In this case however…. I am not sure how one would tell this story any other way. Rather than try to hide the simplicity of the story, Lisa Genova, chose to lean into it. Providing an honesty that you rarely see in some of the best writing. So was the writing poor? In another context I would have to say yes. In this context, it was absolutely brilliant.

This book offered some lovely insights, into what families and individuals with this terrible disease go through. It cuts through the tabooness of discussing this subject, and it makes it possible to talk about it openly and honestly. It looks at many of the issues surrounding it. Such as, how much we know and how little we know about how and why it strikes, how to cure it, how to cope with it and function, how families respond to it and deal with it…. How it isolates everyone it touches… This diseases has no soul and no shame. It will take who it wants, and when it has run it’s course what is left? This book discusses the emotional trauma this disease causes both to it’s most immediate victim and those surrounding them, it offers resources for where to turn to look for help or others struggling. It wades, into the fibers of familial relationships to further understand what this disease takes…. 

I don’t know that this was a favorite read for any of us, it wasn’t for me… But it will go down for all of us me included as one of the books we have read together that we are most grateful to have read. It is a bit formulaic. If it told any other story, I am not sure I would be ok with the writing. But the exploration of this disease and issue, makes that necessary to the telling of this particular tale. The tale itself, discusses something we don’t talk about enough as a society. So if you are looking for a big deep hole to crawl down, this is a wonderful book. Or if you have family or friend/s going through this, it is worth reading. This book is a lesson on how to talk simply about a very hard thing, a disease, that strips people of themselves piece by piece. It gives words to a hard subject. I can not ever appreciate it enough for giving such a gift to all of us touched by this disease or others similar in nature. Because, few other writers and books will even try to tell a story such as this one. This book is brave. It takes a risk, and it teaches us it is ok to talk about this truly difficult subject, even as we also seek a cure and a better understanding of it.

It is critically important to understand the terror and horror that comes as you lose pieces of yourself gradually until you don’t recognize the people that you love the most. We seem to live lately in a world lacking in empathy. In which people seem to only care about what impacts them directly. You can’t read the story of Alice, without being impacted by her suffering. Alice is a fictional character. One in three elderly Americans, dies with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. If this issue doesn’t impact you…. Wait a minute and check again. You may find it does impact you by the end of that minute. Even as this disease and similar diseases end the lives and steal the identities of 1 in every 3 elderly Americans, our government is making cuts to delay research on this issue. I can not imagine the suffering these cuts will cause. How many more Alices do we need to watch endure something horrific and torturous before we recognize even if it isn’t happening to us or one of our loved ones, that can change at any moment. It is imperative, that we find the will to demand the funding for studies on this disease continue undelayed, and unimpacted by those who care only for themselves as they wield massive amounts of power to the detriment of one in every 3 elderly Americans. The studies these cuts impact also cut the hope of everyone who loves someone suffering from this diseases and those similar to it. What is life or this world without hope? Is it really a place those of you who care only about yourselves truly want to live, knowing this disease can get you too?

Thank you for reading,
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm