All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother’s
Dementia, With Refreshments
Alex Witchel
Memoir
For those of you who don’t get the
title of this post, it’s named after a song by Brandy. It’s a great song, too:
if you’ve never heard it, go listen to it. Seriously, do it.
All Gone is writer Alex Witchel’s
loving tribute to her mother who is suffering from dementia. Ms. Witchel goes
back and forth between present day and the past, describing her life with her mom
before she was diagnosed and life with her now. There’s a lot of talk of food,
which surprised me, but then I thought about it and realized isn’t that the way
a lot of us bond with our family members? The parts where her mom is slipping
away from her are the most poignant. Ms. Witchel is a great writer, so this
book is a quick read. My only complaint is that I figured the book would end
with her mother’s death, but it just kind of petered out instead (not that I
want Ms. Witchel’s mother to die, it just would’ve made a more powerful
ending).
If you’ve ever had to take care of a
parent with dementia or just love great writing, you’ll like All Gone.
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