Do you know who you are?
If someone took away what you did, be it a teacher, student or perhaps an athlete, would you still be able to define who you are?
When I left teaching, after many years, to stay home with my daughter, I had to change my definition. This was done by choice and I have never looked back.
Alternately, in Lisa Genova’s book Still Alice, Alice Hoffman’s identity as a Harvard professor and researcher are taken from her and she doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Alice has early onset Alzheimer’s. In the beginning of the story, Alice and her doctors blame it on possible depression or menopause. Alice likes these explanations but over time she begins to realize that her lapses in memory are getting in the way of her daily life. She stands on a street corner two blocks from her house and has absolutely no idea where she is or where she needs to be. She is lost.
Slowly, as the book progresses, we experience Alice’s loss of purpose, worth and identity. We listen in as her friends and family deal with her illness and experience how their actions towards Alice alter as she falls deeper into dementia, with each reacting to Alice’s illness in a different way.
The most fascinating aspect of this book is that even though as Alice’s doctor tells her, “…you may not be the most reliable source of what’s been going on,” the author chooses to tell the story from Alice’s point of view.
We experience, along with Alice, panic and confusion from her perspective.
I believe the author does this so that we can understand what it would feel like to lose part of what makes us individuals. It is fascinating to experience her journey as her capacity to think and reason diminishes — traits around which her whole life was built.
I found this to be an interesting read. It is well written and, I believe, based on the amount of research done, as reliable an account as could possibly be written by someone who has not experienced Alzheimer’s first hand.
I would recommend this book and believe that it is a story that needed to be told. It is enlightening, inspiring and best of all, completely engaging. I love a page-turner and this book fits the bill.
