Month: February 2021

Categories
Films

Falling

Falling is actor, Viggo Mortensen’s debut effort as both a writer and director and it is a stunning accomplishment. Mortensen casts himself as John, a successful pilot, living in California with his husband and their adopted daughter. The movie begins, (in quite shocking fashion), with a scene on a plane. John is flying home from the Midwest with his father, Willis, (Lance Henriksen), when the older man’s dementia causes him to forget where he is and create a scene. Willis is in California to look for a smaller property as he transitions away from the large farm he’s no longer capable of looking after. However, nothing goes to plan during his visit: he manages to offend his daughter, played by Laura Dern, forgets he’s agreed to move house and is so belligerent and offensive he insults almost everyone he comes into contact with.

The film moves backwards and forwards between contemporary time -where Henriksen does an incredible job of portraying an older man who is stubborn, angry and ultimately afraid of losing his own autonomy- and the past -where Sverrir Gudnasson plays a much younger version of Willis who is not yet living with dementia but is equally stubborn, angry and intent upon wielding his authority over his family. Mortensen’s portrayal of John is notable for his forbearance and his measured approach to his father. He maintains the same patient demeanour throughout as his father rages, delivers homophobic and racist insults and humiliates him at every turn. Mortensen’s compassion is so marked it makes the moment when he finally loses his temper -railing against his father for years of abuse- one of the most powerful scenes in the film.

It’s so refreshing to come across a narrative which explores the difficult subject of how to care for someone who is not nice and never has been. This topic is rarely covered in books and movies though, in my experience, it’s reasonably common to find someone caring for a family member who has dementia despite a fractured or even abusive relationship. Mortensen handles the material with sensitivity, but he’s also unflinching when it comes to including the harrowing details. I also appreciated the way he resists stereotyping Willard. Yes, this man is a horrible, racist, homophobic, misogynist but he’s also fond of his granddaughter and displays genuine affection for her. This is a difficult watch but a necessary one. I’d thoroughly recommend checking it out. 

Falling was written and directed by Viggo Mortensen and released in the UK in February 2021

Categories
Book Reviews

“The Twilight Years” by Sawako Ariyoshi

Translated from the Japanese by Mildred Tahara

First published in Japan in 1972, Sawako Ariyoshi’s novel, The Twilight Years was not translated into English for almost a decade. It is very much a period piece, beautifully written and faithfully translated, albeit a little dated in terms of its outlook and attitude. The novel’s main protagonist is Kyoko, a middle-aged woman who lives with her husband and teenage son in a small house in Tokyo. Her elderly in-laws live in a purpose built bungalow on the other side of the yard, although she is not particularly close to them. This changes when her mother-in-law dies unexpectedly and her father-in-law begins acting strangely. Shigezo is diagnosed with senile dementia and becomes increasingly dependent upon his daughter-in-law for care and support.

The writing is exquisite. Ariyoshi gives us a stunning snapshot of family dynamics in a modern 1960s middle class home. The novel says as much about changing attitudes to the role of women as it does about how dementia is viewed. Kyoko is expected to be solely responsible for her father-in-law’s care, including sleeping in the same room as him once he begins to wander off, bathing, toileting and feeding him. She’s also responsible for maintaining the house and feeding her family and still must manage to hold down a day job. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a portrait of a different time as I found the men’s attitudes so utterly deplorable. There is no sense of sharing responsibility for elderly care. Looking after the sick and ageing is not considered a worthy role for a man.

There’s also no question of bringing in outside help. Shigezo is not eligible for regular caring support. The specialised residential care units are all oversubscribed. His only option is a horrific-sounding mental hospital, although Kyoko is advised to avoid this option. She’s repeatedly reminded that an older person should be looked after at home by his relatives. There’s an interesting paradox at work in this novel. Older people are to be respected. Their families must honour them by caring for them in their final years. And yet, the rhetoric around ageing is quite disturbing. As the average life expectancy rises in Japan, the younger people are horrified by the reality of growing old. Shigezo is described as a burden and disgusting and on several occasions, younger members of his family express the belief that they’d rather kill themselves than end up living as he lives. At times these passages make quite hard reading. The Twilight Years is a testament to a different time. The protagonists are many years away from understanding the complexities of dementia or how a person might live well with the illness.

However, it’s not an entirely depressing novel. There are moments of simple beauty and times when we’re given an insight into more positive aspects of elderly life in Japan. I also loved the way Shigezo’s relationship with his daughter-in-law progresses and changes throughout the novel. Kyoko has always disliked and distrusted the old man but as her caring responsibilities place her in intimate proximity to him she slowly begins to form a connection and by the time he finally passes away, is incredibly fond of her father-in-law.

The Twilight Years was published by Peter Owen: London in 1984 

Categories
Book Reviews

“The Housekeeper and The Professor” by Yogo Ogawa

Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

Memory and memory loss are reoccurring themes in Japanese novelist, Yoko Ogawa’s fiction. Last year I read and thoroughly enjoyed her most recent novel, The Memory Police which is entirely focused upon the power and importance of memory. Here, in a much earlier novel, The Housekeeper and The Professor, Ogawa focuses upon a close set of characters and explores the relationship between a professional housekeeper and carer, the older mathematician she is paid to care for and her ten year old son whom she often brings to work with her.

The so-called Professor of the title is an intriguing character. He’s an academic and mathematics genius who, several years previously, sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and has since struggled to maintain short term memories. When we’re first introduced to the Professor he cannot remember anything which took place more than 80 minutes ago. He has resorted to pinning notes on to his clothes in an attempt to convey important pieces of information to himself. The Professor’s fondness for maths and baseball remain intact, as does his ability to reminisce about the distant past. All other thoughts and experiences, no matter how visceral or important, fade from his memory within a short time. As the novel progresses and the Professor’s condition worsens, his short-term memory gradually erodes until he finds himself struggling to remember anything and is, in the book’s final chapters, moved into residential care.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is not explicitly a novel dealing with Dementia. However, many of the symptoms displayed by the Professor are associated with various kinds of Dementia: his memory loss and disorientation, the comfort he takes from routine, his preoccupation with the past, the slow decline of his physical health and inability to connect with a carer he doesn’t recognise from one visit to the next. Therefore, it’s possible to learn about these specific experiences from Ogawa’s portrait of the Professor. I’ve included this novel in my list of texts because it explores a youngish man’s experience of memory loss, (the Professor is only in his late 50s when his condition first develops), and because it’s such a well-drawn and invaluable synopsis of the relationship which can develop between a person and their professional carer. By the novel’s close, it is quite clear that the time and attention she’s given to the Professor, mean that the Housekeeper understands him better than his own family. 

This is a gentle novel with beautifully crafted characters and due attention paid to recording the experience of memory loss with honesty and precision, but also a modicum of hope. I’ve really enjoyed Ogawa’s writing and now intend to track down more of her novels. I’d thoroughly recommend this book. 

The Housekeeper and the Professor was published by Vintage in 2010 

Categories
Book Reviews

“Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot

Before the Coffee Gets Cold was a huge hit in Japan when it was first published in 2015 and, after translation, has proven to be extremely popular internationally. It includes many tropes of Japanese literature -the focus on family structures, fantastical elements, café culture- and yet, having read a lot of Japanese literature over the last few years I found this novel very slight and a little flat. It felt a bit generic and forgettable to me. It is, however, interestingly structured. The novel is split into four distinct sections, each one focused upon a regular customer in the basement café where the novel is set. Though the cast of characters all appear in each section, each of the quarters is clearly devoted to a particular person or couple. 

The café itself is an intriguing conceit. If a customer sits in a particular chair it is possible to travel back to the past or forward to the future to meet another customer in the same café. Unfortunately, there is an ever-growing list of caveats and rules when it comes to the time travelling seat. Customers may only travel once, cannot change the present and must return before their coffee gets cold. As a magic realist writer, I found this scenario really appealing but was a little disappointed by how Kawaguchi developed it. He never seems to fully exploit or explore the potential of time travel and each escapade resolves much too neatly. The novel’s ending, in particular, feels a little too like a Hallmark movie to be truly satisfying.

The second section of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, is entitled “Husband and Wife” and follows Fusagi, an older Japanese man who has recently been diagnosed with dementia and his wife Kohtake who is a nurse. The scene begins when Fusagi drops into the café to leave a letter for his wife. Kohtake is sitting at a table in plain sight. This is the first time her husband has not recognised her, and she is naturally quite upset. The women who work in the café try their best to comfort their friend. The novel gives the reader an interesting snapshot of how dementia is viewed culturally in Japan. As a nurse, Kohtake insists that she will be able to look after her husband’s physical needs when the illness begins to remove his independence. She will put his needs above her own desires as his partner. Later, upset by the deterioration in her husband’s condition, Kohtake asks to use the time travelling chair to return to a point in the past where her husband was well and unaware of his condition. She’d like to spend a few minutes with the old Fusagi, before his personality began to change. Kohtake does not travel back far enough. She meets her husband at a point where he already knows his diagnosis though he’s carefully hiding his symptoms from her. Fusagi insists that he does not want to become a patient to his wife. He wants her to promise that she will leave him to professional carers when his dementia advances to the point that Kohtake can no longer see him as her husband.

There’s so much potential in this novel. Kawaguchi could have explored the complex power structures and emotional connections inherent within a relationship where one of the partners develops dementia. He could have taken a longer look at the differences between Eastern and Western attitudes to both dementia and how the elderly are perceived. I’d have loved him to fully unpick the huge moral question of whether you’d change the future if you could. Instead, he gives us a charming story about a couple and a magical chair. It’s a neat little dementia narrative and the fantastical elements do not jar but I can’t help but wish we’d been given a little more depth.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold was published by Picador in 2019 

Categories
Events

“Somebody I Used to Know” – NI Science Festival Event with Wendy Mitchell

If you missed our wonderful conversation about writing dementia which was included in February 2021’s NI Science Festival Programme you can watch it on YouTube by following this link

Brave, inspiring and beautifully crafted, Wendy Mitchell’s memoir, Somebody I Used to Know was the first book of its kind written by someone living with dementia. In this much anticipated conversation, Belfast-based novelist Jan Carson will chat to Wendy about her experience living with and writing about dementia, alongside author Anna Wharton who helped co-author Wendy’s memoir and has recently published her own debut novel, The Imposter in which she further explores the theme of dementia. Queen’s University Belfast based linguist, Dr Jane Lugea will also be joining the conversation to talk about her AHRC-funded research project exploring how writers represent dementia in their fiction. We are delighted to bring together three inspiring women for an important conversation about how dementia can be written about with dignity, hope and imagination. The book ‘Somebody I Used to Know’ is available in Belfast from No Alibis Bookstore: https://noalibis.com​ And available internationally from local bookstores.

Categories
Book Reviews

“Surviving Grace” by Trish Vradenburg

The Washington Star review printed on the back of my copy of Surviving Grace calls this play, “a two-hour Seinfeld,” and this assessment seems particularly apt. The play is sharp, funny, fast-paced and in places a little absurd. It centres around Kate Griswald, a thirty something TV producer and her sixty five year old mother Grace. Kate’s life is hectic. She’s too busy for relationships. Her main focus in life is her career. She’s so busy juggling responsibilities at work she actually missed the birthday party where her mother’s confusion begins to become apparent to the rest of the family.

Grace’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis interrupts Kate’s hectic career. Suddenly, she not only has to worry about placating the actors in her sitcom, she also has to look out for her mother and her father who’s struggling to deal with his wife’s decline. The initial sections of the play address several key issues couples have to face when one develops Dementia. Jack, (Kate’s father), expresses his sadness about his wife’s condition.

“She can’t hold on to a thought anymore. Her mind is a sieve. It kills me to see her like this.”

He complains about the way their old friends now avoid them because they’re either afraid of Grace’s Alzheimer’s or don’t know what to say.

“Alzheimer’s is hurting out social life. You know what Mom said. Only family hangs in there.”

He even acknowledges the way the American healthcare system can wreck havoc on a couple’s finances and savings if one of them develops an illness like Dementia.

“The house is the only thing the government won’t take from you to pay for this. No Medicaid until I’m broke. I checked. Fifty-five thousand a year this costs.”

Eventually Jack can’t take the responsibility of looking after his wife. Grace is moved to a nursing home and Jack finds himself a younger girlfriend. He chooses fun and excitement over responsibility and leaves Kate to pick up the pieces. The play moves away from the traditional Dementia narrative about half way through. Grace is placed on a programme of experimental, (and completely fictional), new drugs which reverse the symptoms of her Alzheimer’s. She begins to recover her language skills and her memories. She shocks her family by informing them that she’s been cognisant and listening to everything they’ve said over the last few months. She wants to use the time she’s be given to travel and enjoy herself. Having gained a taste for the world beyond her nursing home, Grace refuses to return from her travels and without the Alzheimer’s-blocking drug regime, begins to decline for a second time.

Surviving Grace is a funny, intriguing, irreverent look at a family dealing with a Dementia-diagnosis in a truly unique way. Not every theme is developed fully and I’m still not entirely certain what Vradenburg hoped to achieve with the inclusion of a miracle cure. Yet, it raises lots of questions about consent and responsibility. It made me laugh in several places and offers an interesting alternative to the usual nursing home experience. It even includes a bit of romance.

Surviving Grace was published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. in 2003. 

Categories
Book Reviews

“A Chronicle of Forgetting” by Sebastijan Pregelj

Translated from the Slovene by Rawley Grau

Slovene novelist, Sebastijan Pregelj’s slender novel, A Chronicle of Forgetting is a beautifully written book, expertly translated by Rawley Grau. The prose is clean and elegant, allowing Pregelj to experiment with hidden meanings and images inherent within the text. The novel is set in a Slovene nursing home and focuses upon a small number of residents and staff members who we see through the eyes of one elderly male resident. It is divided up into four sections, including an opening section narrated by the main protagonist at his own funeral and a final section narrated by an unnamed carer who might be representative of the man’s inner life. The novel closes with this haunting statement, delivered over the man’s deathbed. 

“You are what has happened and what is yet to come. 

You are life as it is.”

Perhaps these words can be read as a kind of key which unlocks the entire novel. This is a book where time itself is extremely fluid. As the narrator’s Dementia develops, he slips backwards and forwards in his reminiscences. His past life and regrets blur with the present as he attempts to make amends for the mistakes he’s made. At times it’s unclear whether these grand gestures have actually been made or are simply plans the man is making for a future he might not live to see. He enjoys a romance with an elderly female resident though it’s also unclear if this only takes place inside his head. As the novel progresses, he -and by proxy the readers he speaks to- becomes increasingly confused between reality and imagination. There are several occasions within the novel where he might be experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations, common to certain types of Dementia, or he might be narrating a real experience. I enjoyed the way Pregelj refuses to patronise his readers and leaves the interpretation up to them.

Some of the classic tropes of Dementia narratives set in care facilities are absent here. There’s very little evidence of residents being infantilised. In fact, the narrator goes out of his way to emphasise his independence and the good relationships he has with staff members. He does talk at length about the physical aspects of ageing and deterioration. He describes the effects old age has had on his body including weight loss and incontinency. I was also glad to see one of the first explorations of sex between older people living with Dementia I’ve come across during my reading. However, Pregelj avoids language loss as an associated issue. The narrative voice is strong and coherent throughout the text. 

As the title would suggest A Chronicle of Forgetting is primarily a book concerned with memory; how memory is lost, what we remember and how accurate our memories are. It’s a beautiful, meandering gentle read which left me more hopeful than most Dementia narratives do. There’s a real sense of urgency running through this narrative. The man is not naïve. He knows he’s losing his grasp on reality, but he chooses not to panic and to make the most of every minute he has left. 

“Forgetting will swallow up my memories, bit by bit, until eventually I forget who I am, where I came from and why I’m here. But before that happens, I hope that for a few moments I’ll be able to put the world around me out of my mind and, without fear, sail away to somewhere else.”

A Chronicle of Forgetting was published by the Slovene Writers’ Association in 2019 

Categories
Book Reviews

“Turn of Mind” by Alice LaPlante

Turn of Mind was the first novel to win the Wellcome Book Prize, back in 2011. It was also one of the first of a number of novels and stories which used the conceit of Dementia as a vehicle for investigating a murder within a crime fiction context. As such, it’s a really interesting example of Dementia being explored in fiction. The plot is reasonably simple. Dr Jennifer White, a once highly gifted surgeon, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She finds her friend Amanda stabbed to death and is horrified to discover four of her fingers have been so expertly removed they could easily be, (no pun intended), her own handiwork. Jennifer can’t remember killing her friend, but she can’t be sure she didn’t do it either and suspicion naturally falls upon her. She doesn’t entirely understand the situation and therefore doesn’t know how to react appropriately.

“My guess is that a smile would be inappropriate. Fear might not be.”

I’ll not give away any spoilers because this is an exceptionally well-written, twisty and addictive crime fiction read. You’ll want to enjoy it for yourself without knowing how the story turns out. What I will say is that LaPlante is utterly convincing writing in Jennifer’s voice. The novel gives us such a great insight into what it’s like for a person to be so confused, she no longer even knows what she’s capable of. Jennifer is driven by the desire to piece the events together and find out what’s actually happened. She begins to keep a notebook of facts and this becomes a narrative device effectively employed by LaPlante to fill in the gaps in Jennifer’s memory, keeping the reader clear about the chain of events and timings. We are also given snippets of conversations between Jennifer and her children, and live-in caregiver Magdalena, though increasingly Jennifer is unclear who these people are, and the reader is also unsure which of them are to be trusted. Jennifer suspects everyone, even herself and as we’re following the story from her perspective, we are also encouraged to be distrustful too. Jennifer’s narrative slips in and out of different time periods; memories mixing with facts and perceptions so it’s almost impossible to know what is true.

I really enjoyed this novel. I couldn’t put it down. It’s one of the few examples of Dementia fiction where I found the plot utterly compelling and just as interesting as the characterisation. The Dementia aspect of Turn of Mindcould easily have been reduced down to a simple conceit, nothing more than a clever device for writing crime fiction. However, LaPlante has clearly done her research and both the voice and characterisation of Jennifer is utterly believable. This is a very realistically drawn character living with Dementia who is also caught up in an intriguing story. It’s easy to see why the novel impressed the Wellcome Prize judges.

Turn of Mind was published by Vintage in 2011 

Categories
Book Reviews

“Ghosts” by Dolly Alderton

Ghosts is award-winning author and journalist, Dolly Alderton’s debut novel. It’s not the sort of book I’d normally turn to -a kind of Bridget Jones-style take on contemporary dating with lots of pop culture references, romance and a little bit of pathos on the side- and yet, I have to say I really enjoyed it. It’s a quick read, and for the most part, quite light but it includes several really tender moments which made me stop in my tracks. The novel follows food writer Nina, as she turns thirty two and attempt to navigate the world of online dating whilst the majority of her friends are having babies and settling into married life. The thing which make Ghosts a little different from other books of this type I’ve read, is Nina’s relationship with her parents. Her mother, aged 65, appears to be having a rather late version of a midlife crisis. She’s changed her name and suddenly developed an interest in feminism and philosophy. Her father, aged 77, is showing signs of dementia. Though the 

novel shies away from using the kind of specific terminology usually found in dementia narratives, Bill’s prognosis is very apparent in his behaviour: he wanders back to his childhood home, he doesn’t recognise friends and family members, he becomes increasingly irritable.

I was not expecting to be so moved by Alderton’s portrayal of Bill and the way his wife and daughter react to his condition. It’s tenderly drawn and incredibly accurate. There is a real sense of Bill’s frustration. He’s an intellectual who is used to being respected and listened to. His constant refrain throughout the novel is “nobody’s listening. Nobody’s taking me seriously.” He’s aware enough to know he is being infantilised but too confused to realise that the things he’s saying are increasingly nonsensical. I thought Alderton perfectly captured the early stages of a dementia diagnosis when the person is aware that something isn’t quite right. I also loved her observation that Bill, with dementia, was not less like himself, but rather a kind of condensed version of himself with his personality, interests and affectations much more concentrated than before. I’ve noticed this happening with several people I’ve known personally but never been able to put words to the phenomena before.

I also thought Alderton was particularly strong in her descriptions of how Bill’s wife reacts to his condition. At first Nancy seems incredibly blazé and sometimes dismissive. She argues constantly with her husband and doesn’t seem to take his dementia seriously. As Bill’s illness develops and they’re forced to source a carer to help them manage, Nancy begins to articulate her anger and fear. There’s a wonderful, very believable scene, where she speaks honestly about her fear of losing both her husband and her own sense of self. She doesn’t know who she’ll be without him. She’s had hopes for their retirement that she knows will never come to pass now.

These same notions of hope deferred and identity re-imagined are best explored in the character of Nina. Alderton writes Nina as an incredibly believable thirty something juggling career, relationship, friends and family responsibility. As her father’s condition declines she’s forced to re-imagine her relationship with him. She can no longer turn to him for support and solace. She is now her father’s carer. It is hard for her to accept this role reversal and the realisation that her father might not be there to walk her down the aisle or to meet his grandchildren. The future will be different from how Nina has imagined in.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Ghosts quite as much as I did, or to discover such a fantastically well-drawn description of an intellectual man, living with dementia, a character I don’t often come across. 

Ghosts was published by Fig Tree in 2020 

Categories
Book Reviews

“The Granny Project” by Anne Fine

The Granny Project is a short YA novel written by Carnegie Medal winning writer Anne Fine and first published in 1983. It later found a place on the school curriculum and was adapted into a popular play. It opens with the mother and father of the family announcing the intention to put the children’s beloved grandmother into a nursing home.

“Are you two thinking of putting Granny into a home?”

“Thinking is finished,” Natasha told him. “It is decided.”

The four children -Ivan, Sophie, Tanya and Nicholas- subsequently hatch a cunning plan, (the Granny Project of the title). They will gather data which paints their parents attempts at caring for Granny, who is living with Dementia, in a very negative light. If Henry and Natasha don’t back down and allow Granny to stay in the house, they will hand this report in as a Social Sciences project, mortifying their parents. It’s an effective means of blackmail and eventually Henry and Natasha agree that Granny can stay. 

However, they do not fill their children in on the conditions associated with their acquiescence until the Granny Project has been destroyed. As soon as the written evidence is burnt, they inform the children that they are now solely responsible for their grandmother’s care. The children soon learn exactly how much work goes into caring for an elderly person living with Dementia, though I have to say, they -especially Ivan- make a valiant effort at giving the old lady the respect and attention she deserves. Just at the point when the situation is once again becoming intolerable, Granny sadly develops pneumonia and passes away. Towards the end of the novel, the older children reflect on the two forms of care their granny experienced at the end of her life. 

“Ivan, if Granny hadn’t died, and we could start again, would you still vote for keeping her at home?”

“Yes,” Ivan said.

“Just the same?”

“No, not just the same. Not with the system where they did all the work, and hated it. Or with the one where I did.”

It’s these insights into caring from the child’s perspective which make The Granny Project such an interesting read. In taking on the full burden of their grandmother’s care, the children come to understand how much pressure their parents have been under, yet also develop an even closer bond with the old lady and feel more inclined to ensure she stays at home. There’s not a huge amount of fresh insight into what it’s like to live with Dementia here; Granny’s condition isn’t even given an official name. The emphasis is more on the carers perspective and particularly how children will react to seeing someone they love begin to become confused. 

This is an often times hilarious, sharply written analysis of what it takes to holistically care for a loved one at home. It explores the complexities of family dynamics, what it feels like to be a child carer, (including the practical sacrifices and lifestyle changes Ivan is forced to make) and also how children process grief and loss. At times it feels a little dated, the cultural references are firmly rooted in the eighties and some of the attitudes feel a little out of whack with contemporary thinking but it’s still well worth reading today. 

The Granny Project was published by Methuen Children’s Books in 1983