The Scourge of Alzheimer's Disease in Print and On the Screen

The other day I forced myself to go see the film "Still Alice." I had read and been terrified by the book when it first came out. Lesa Genova's novel about a brilliant college professor felled by early onset Alzheimer's disease was devastating to me but I wanted to see Julianne Moore's Oscar-winning performance. 

It happens that I've also been reading a gorgeously written family saga called "We Are Not Ourselves," a debut novel by a beautiful young man named Matthew Thomas. Reviews have been outstanding. Superlatives like "American classic" and "new novel of the American century," have been bandied about. But it wasn't until I visited his website today that I discovered how deeply personal this book was for him.

http://www.matthewthomasauthor.com/news/

http://time.com/author/matthew-thomas/

Set in an Irish-American enclave in Queens, Thomas follows several generations from the end of World War II, a time when the so-called American Dream was actually attainable for most immigrants, to current times when so many have found that the reality doesn't always live up to the hype.

Eileen Tumulty struggled as a kid, covering up for her mother's alcoholism while enabling her dad. The love and attention she lacked left an enormous chasm in Eileen and a yearning for a better life, education being the way up and out. And so it is that, when she meets and falls for the affable, sharp-minded college professor Ed Leary, she sees a secure future ensured.

And for many years, life is good. Ed dotes on their son Connell, born just when they had resigned themselves to a childless marriage. Eileen excels as a nursing supervisor, squirreling away every penny for the day when they can leave their duplex behind for the suburbs. But, what Thomas does so expertly, and what links this novel in my mind to "Still Alice," is slowly, inexorably open up the fissures in the family's foundation.

There's a sense of impending doom that settles on the reader early in the narrative and it doesn't let up. Which isn't to say, don't read this book. After all, most great literature goes to very dark places and it will lend itself perfectly to book discussion groups.

At 640 pages, this novel reflects an investment in time, and some critics have opined that further editing should have been done. I disagree. For a writer to truly tackle the subject of early onset Alzheimer's disease as it batters a family, day in and day out, emotionally, financially, and physically over the course of several years, takes time and patience.

"We Are Not Ourselves" is a deeply involving, extremely honest portrayal of a family that, like so many of us, just puts one foot in front of the other every day, usually doing the right thing, handling the obstacles that fate puts in the way as best they can, finding joy in small pleasures, and loving each other fiercely. Perhaps this is the true American dream.

Florence Gordon is this Decade's Olive Kitteridge

Brian Morton is not a household name among readers. What a shame. The man teaches at NYU and directs the writing program at Sarah Lawrence College. Based upon my reading of his latest novel, "Florence Gordon," he must be very talented at what he does. It can't be easy to write a difficult woman but Florence is perfect. She's a combination of my favorite crank from Louise Penny's Three Pines, the poet Ruth, and the very difficult and misunderstood Olive K.

 

 

When I get together with some of my more honest friends over a few glasses of wine, (you know who you are), I find that we will admit to each other that we don't really like people as much as we used to. Or, perhaps it's more that we no longer feel we have to suffer fools gladly. Life's just too short and we've been around long enough to speak the truth. And so it is that, if you trust me, you'll find that 75-year-old Florence, a feminist product of the fifties, spurred on by the Friedan/Steinem movement, is a woman you'll recognize as a kindred spirit and enjoy spending time with.

 

Florence Gordon, though renowned in women's studies programs, is also not a household name, until, that is, her memoir is reviewed on the front page of the "New York Time Book Review." Will celebrity change Florence her son and daughter-in-law ask? Suddenly a household name, she finds that she needs an assistant to help her schedule the book tour and the speaking engagements while guarding her much needed privacy. Is her seemingly aimless, college drop-out of a granddaughter, up to the task?

 

Morton deftly paints the difficult relationship but growing understanding between the curmudgeonly luddite Florence and her 21st century, tweeting, blogging, granddaughter Emily. Florence, much like myself, worries that the younger generation of women have no sense of the rights they stand to lose if they don't learn from the battles of those who have come before.

 

But Emily is more perspicacious than Florence gives her credit for and, in a great scene, Emily recognizes her grandmother's chutzpah as she storms into the center of a Manhattan street with a crowd of like-minded protesters.

 

There are many laugh out loud chapters in Morton's novel even though the themes are deeply serious. I happily watched Florence put rude people in their places, hanging up on her doctor's secretary who kept her on hold just a second too long, or counseling an overwhelmed young mother who moonlights as an author escort in order to flog a memoir written before she's even begun to live.

 

This is a novel about a fiercely independent woman, one who loves her family but finds that she has little in common with them. She is a woman who has made a satisfying, fulfilling life on her own terms. She is a woman who has used her intellect to write passionately about injustice over the span of a fifty year career without compromise. To some, an opinionated woman like Florence Gordon is a threat. To me, she is an icon.