Tag: Alzheimers
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“Back to Blackbrick” by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Cosmo’s grandad is beginning to exhibit the early signs of Alzheimer’s. A team of social workers appear at the house he shares with his grandparents, hoping to test Grandad Kevin’s memory. If he doesn’t pass this memory test, Grandad will be dispatched to a nursing home. Cosmo is particularly close to his grandparents after his…
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“Aliceheimer’s; Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass” by Dana Walrath
Anthropologist, artist and writer Dana Walrath became a live-in carer for her mother Alice after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis became too much for her to manage alone. Moving her mother from her apartment in New York to the family home in rural Vermont, Walrath used the months they spent together to both record her mother’s dementia…
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“The Story of Forgetting” by Stefan Merrill Block
The Story of Forgetting is Stefan Merrill Block’s debut novel. It is a sprawling work which merges realism and fantastical elements in a story spanning hundreds of years and many generations of the same family. During its best moments the storytelling is beautiful and captivating. At other times the novel feels a little unsure of itself…
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Away From Her
Canadian director, Sarah Polley’s Away From Her was one of my first encounters of a dementia narrative on the big screen. Polley wrote the screenplay based on Alice Munro’s beautiful short story, The Bear Came Over the Mountain and was determined from the outset to cast Julie Christie in the lead as Fiona, a smart, passionate woman who is…
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“Ten Days” by Austin Duffy
Irish novelist, Austin Duffy’s second novel, Ten Days is mostly set in New York. Photographer, Wolf is visiting the city with his daughter Ruth so she can take part in her late mother’s family’s celebration of the ten High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The visit will culminate in a ceremony to scatter Miriam’s…
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“The Imposter” by Anna Wharton
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a pre-publication proof copy of Anna Wharton’s first novel, The Imposter which is due for release in early 2021. Anna has been a journalist, writer and ghost writer for many, many years and most notably worked alongside Wendy Mitchell on her bestselling memoir about her life…
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“Minor Monuments” by Ian Maleney
Minor Monuments is a collection of personal essays by Dublin-based writer Ian Maleney. They’re all set around his family’s small farm on the edge of a bog a few miles from the River Shannon. They explore issues around belonging, place, home, memory and nature and weave together Maleney’s personal experience with his musings on literature,…
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“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…
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“This Excellent Machine” by Stephen Orr
This Excellent Machine is the first volume in an anticipated trilogy of childhood novels by Australian writer, Stephen Orr. Set in a single neighbourhood of a small Australian town in 1984 it is narrated by seventeen year old Clem who lives with his mother, his sister, Jen and his Pop, Doug. Pop has been a surrogate…
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“Wrinkles” by Paco Roca
There are so many ways to tell a story and just as many avenues for engaging a reader. An issue as diverse, wide-ranging and various as dementia will require the whole gamut of an artist’s creative ability as they seek to find effective means of telling a story that isn’t their own. Spanish author, Paco…