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Keeper: One House, Three Generations, and a Journey into Alzheimer's

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher:
Crown
Pub. Date:
2010
Language:
English
Description
Five years ago, Andrea Gillies— writer, wife, and mother of three—seeing that her husband's parents were struggling to cope, invited them to move in.  She and her newly extended family relocated to a big Victorian house on a remote, windswept peninsula in the far north of Scotland, leaving behind their friends and all that was familiar;  hoping to find a new life, and new inspiration for work.

Her mother-in-law Nancy was in the middle stages of Alzheimer's Disease, and Keeper charts her journey into dementia, its impact on her personality and her family, and the author's researches into what dementia is.   As the grip of her disease tightens, Nancy's grasp on everything we think of as ordinary unravels before our eyes. Diary entries and accounts of conversations with Nancy track the slow unravelling.  The journey is marked by frustration, isolation, exhaustion, and unexpected black comedy. For the author, who knew little about dementia at the outset, the learning curve was steeper than she could have imagined. The most pernicious quality of Alzheimer’s, Gillies suggests, is that the loss of memory is, in effect, the loss of one’s self, and Alzheimer’s, because it robs us of our intrinsic self-knowledge, our ability to connect with others, and our capacity for self-expression, is perhaps the most terrible and most dehumanizing illness. Moreover, as Gillies reminds us, the effects of Alzheimer’s are far-reaching, impacting the lives of caregivers and their loved ones in every way imaginable.

Keeper
is a fiercely honest “glimpse into the dementia abyss”—an endlessly engrossing meditation on memory and the mind, on family, and on a society that is largely indifferent to the far-reaching ravages of this baffling disease.
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ISBN:
9780307719133
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID01714930-44ac-b023-0f91-457524c4b1b3
Grouping Titlekeeper one house three generations and a journey into alzheimers
Grouping Authorandrea gillies
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2024-03-29 04:05:49AM
Last Indexed2024-03-29 04:22:12AM

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Five years ago, Andrea Gillies— writer, wife, and mother of three—seeing that her husband's parents were struggling to cope, invited them to move in.  She and her newly extended family relocated to a big Victorian house on a remote, windswept peninsula in the far north of Scotland, leaving behind their friends and all that was familiar;  hoping to find a new life, and new inspiration for work.

Her mother-in-law Nancy was in the middle stages of Alzheimer's Disease, and Keeper charts her journey into dementia, its impact on her personality and her family, and the author's researches into what dementia is.   As the grip of her disease tightens, Nancy's grasp on everything we think of as ordinary unravels before our eyes. Diary entries and accounts of conversations with Nancy track the slow unravelling.  The journey is marked by frustration, isolation, exhaustion, and unexpected black comedy. For the author, who knew little about dementia at the outset, the learning curve was steeper than she could have imagined. The most pernicious quality of Alzheimer’s, Gillies suggests, is that the loss of memory is, in effect, the loss of one’s self, and Alzheimer’s, because it robs us of our intrinsic self-knowledge, our ability to connect with others, and our capacity for self-expression, is perhaps the most terrible and most dehumanizing illness. Moreover, as Gillies reminds us, the effects of Alzheimer’s are far-reaching, impacting the lives of caregivers and their loved ones in every way imaginable.

Keeper
is a fiercely honest “glimpse into the dementia abyss”—an endlessly engrossing meditation on memory and the mind, on family, and on a society that is largely indifferent to the far-reaching ravages of this baffling disease.
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2024-03-29T08:22:12.006Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
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Online OverDrive
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Anne Arundel County Public Library Online
owning_location_aacpl
Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9780307719133
publishDate
2010
publisher
Crown
recordtype
grouped_work
title_display
Keeper One House, Three Generations, and a Journey into Alzheimer's
title_full
Keeper One House, Three Generations, and a Journey into Alzheimer's
title_short
Keeper
title_sub
One House, Three Generations, and a Journey into Alzheimer's
topic_facet
Biography & Autobiography
Family & Relationships
Health & Fitness
Nonfiction

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