Awards

• Short-listed for Age Concern Book of the Year 1999
• Shortlisted for Age Concern Book of the Year 1999.
• Winner of Mind Book of the Year Award 1999
• Winner of Mind Book of the Year Award 1999.
• Winner of MIND Book of the Year/Allen Lane Award 1999
• Winner of MIND Book of the Year/Allen Lane Award 1999.

Overview

In 1993 Linda Grant's mother, Rose, was diagnosed with dementia. With Rose's memory deteriorating, a whole world was in the process of being lost. In this work she looks at questions of identity, memory and autonomy.

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9781862072442

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Reviews

British journalist and novelist Grant (Sexing the Millennium, 1994) fashions a stylish, poignant memoir of her mothers losing battle with an insidious form of dementia.Grant divides her text into 27 unnumbered sections, beginning with a nightmarish shopping excursion with her mother Rose to buy a dress for a family wedding in 1996, and ending with a lyrical paean to memory (the Wandering Jew of our physical selves). A brief Afterword contains an update on her mothers continuing decline. Rose suffers from MID (Multi-Infarct Dementia), a disease characterized by continual minor strokes that, in her case, have destroyed her short-term memory. Grant chronicles the struggles that she and her sister go through to care for their mother, first in her own apartment and then, finally, in a custodial home. Grant, a wonderful writer, has assembled many touching episodes, many remarkable observations. She remembers being embarrassed and disgusted by her father (who sold supplies to hairdressers); she regrets not paying attention in her youth to the family stories of her elders; she recalls with bemusement her fathers sudden confession of an encounter with a prostituteand her mothers placid acceptance (he had given her earrings to soften the news, and jewelry easily outweighed a sexual infidelity); she realizes the wisdom of a friends comment that Your mother has become your daughter. Even in the darkness of her disease, Rose continues to surprise Grant: she follows the O.J. Simpson trial, grieves at the death of Princess Di, and retains her tasteful fashion sense. Most affecting are Grants accounts of her wrenching decision to institutionalize her mother. When they finally leave her in a facility, she wonders: What crime have we perpetrated, bringing her to this terrible place? Less effective are summaries of discussions about dementia with an administrator of the facility.A graceful and loving meditation on the inevitability of decline, on the wonder of memory. (17 b&w photos) (Kirkus Reviews)

As her mother falls victim to the increasing ravages of Multi-Infarct Dementia - 'there were little holes in her brain, real holes in the grey matter where the memory of her life used to be' - Linda Grant comes to realize that 'memory... is everything, it's life itself'. It is not just her poor bewildered parent whose individuality is disappearing into those holes, but Grant's links to her past, her ancestors, her heritage. This moving, perceptive and fascinating book is in part an attempt to nail down a family history. It is also Grant's honest account of how she coped with her mother's heartbreaking and frustrating condition after a lifetime of friction between them. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Linda Grant was born in Liverpool in 1951. She was educated in Liverpool and studied at the University of York and in Canada. Since 1985 she has worked as a freelance journalist for broadsheet newspapers and magazines including Marie Claire, Vogue and Good Housekeeping. She is now a feature writer for the Guardian. She is the author of Sexing the Millennium.

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