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Subtitled, "A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother & Me". A moving and vivid account of the death of an Alzheimer's patient, Leavitt's mother, in a graphic novel format. It was published last year in Canada to rapturous critical acclaim and a host of awards. *Also appeared in September Buyer's Notes*
Synopsis
What do you do when your outspoken, passionate and quick-witted mother starts fading into a forgetful, fearful woman? This memoir, reveals how Alzheimer's disease transformed the author's mother Midge - and her family - forever. It shares her family's journey through a harrowing range of emotions, all the while learning to cope.
Book Details
Publisher:
JONATHAN CAPE
Publication Date:
03-Nov-2011
ISBN:
9780224094221
Guardian review
Tangles by Sarah Leavitt - review
the guardian Tue 07 February 2012
Midge Leavitt begins showing symptoms of Alzheimer's in her mid-50s. Her handwriting starts to wobble, she loses herself in familiar parts of town, and strange, "blankety-blank" headaches shift around in her skull. Losing words and stories proves particularly debilitating for a woman who was once so enthused by them with her husband, fellow teacher Rob, she "built a life of books and art and creativity". Leavitt responds in kind in this heartbreaking memoir, which follows her mother's gradual decline and her family's reaction to it. Her simple line drawings are rarely fascinating in themselves but they serve the story well, capturing facial expressions with subtle brevity and showing the subtext behind brave or cruel words as Leavitt's voice stretches from calm rationalising to an anguished wail and back. Stark details accounts of tidying up after a woman whose body is no longer her own and trying to communicate with a mother who can barely recognise her family are married with warm, funny recollections of Jewish-Canadian life.
