There was so much hype surrounding this book that I HAD to read it. I didn’t want to. I am knocking on 50’s door and did not want to be depressed by a story about a contemporary losing her mind and memories. While that was the gist of the story, that wasn’t all.
Still Alice grabbed my attention from the very beginning. Again, maybe it was my similarity in age to Alice or my morbid fascination at being inside her head as she began to develop symptoms of early onset Alzheimer’s. Either way, I finished it in two days.
Alice Howland is a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard renowned linguistics expert. She is rightfully proud of her accomplishments and travels the world speaking at conferences and giving keynotes. She is married to John, also a well respected professor at Harvard. They have three grown children. Their lives are complete, fulfilling and fast-tracked.
Alice begins to develop some “tip of the tongue” moments during her lectures; times when she knows what she wants to say, but a specific word is just out of reach. We’ve all experienced that. One day she was out for a run and found herself confused about what turn to take to get home. This left her upset, but she continued to deny her symptoms for a while longer. Finally she saw a plethora of doctors and received her diagnosis.
Of course, as all of her indicators start to rear their ugly heads, I couldn’t help but think about the times I can’t find my car after being in the mall or grocery store. That freaked me out. Each time I’d walk into a room and couldn’t remember why I’d gone in it I’d think to myself, “yep, I have Alzheimer's”. Please understand that I am not making light of this disease. It really did have me in a state of hypochondriactic paranoia. (Hypochondriactic...I think I just made that word up.) In addition, I’d been watching Celebrity Apprentice where Leeza Gibbons’ charity was Leeza’s Care Connection and she told the story of her mom’s diagnosis with the disease. It. Was. Everywhere. Ahhh! Back to the book...
The novel centers around Alice coming to terms with her diagnosis, while her family struggles to admit that they are losing the version of their mom/wife they had always known. It strategically points out that nobody has a plan for something like this. That becomes apparent as Alice tries to put makeshift safety nets in place just to go for a run. It invites the somewhat reluctant reader to a seat at the table of this terrible disease. We see Alice’s frenzied need to read everything before she can no longer do so. We see her struggle with the fact that she may never “know” her grandchildren, see her son fall in love or be able to comprehend the success her actress daughter achieves. We see her forced to give up the career she loves as her reputation begins to unravel. We see a side of life that people all over the world are living every day. It’s both enlightening and frightening.
Relationships are at the heart of Still Alice. The change in them begins gradually but the manifestation of the disease happens so quickly that those relationships become tested. Readers watch while John begins to pull away because he is unable to help his wife. They see her children vacillate between worry and self-pity, as this disease is hereditary.
The novel was thought-provoking and emotionally difficult to read. It makes the reader take a look at what happens to the family dynamic when one goes from family member to caregiver. It forces the reader to see that this story is not about Alice, per say, but about all of us. How would we handle this situation if it happened to someone we loved? What’s more, how would we react if it began happening to us?
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