Still Alice
Author(s): Lisa Genova
SECONDHAND BOOKS | General Fiction
Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. A Harvard professor, she has a successful husband and three grown children. When she begins to grow forgetful, she dismisses it for as long as she can, but when she gets lost in her own neighbourhood she knows that something has gone terribly wrong. She finds herself in the rapidly downward spiral of Alzheimer's Disease. She is fifty years old. Suddenly she has no classes to teach, no new research to conduct, no invited lectures to give. Ever again. Unable to work, read and, increasingly, take care of herself, Alice struggles to find meaning and purpose in her everyday life as her concept of self gradually slips away. But Alice is a remarkable woman, and her family, yoked by history and DNA and love, discover more about her and about each other, in their quest to keep the Alice they know for as long as possible. Losing her yesterdays, her short-term memory hanging on by a couple of frayed threads, she is living in the moment, living for each day. But she is still Alice.
2009. A trade paperback copy in very good condition with light tanning to the page edges and light creasing to the wraps.
Product Information
Karen writes:
Alice Howland is in her early fifties and as the peak of career as an eminent Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. She's fit and her relationship with her husband and grown up girls is comfortable. She's on her daily jog when inexplicably she gets lost. So begins her descent into early onset Alzheimer's Disease. The novel explores how Alice comes to terms with the diagnosis and how she tries to control the inevitable slide. I had such an emotional response to this novel as my beloved father-in-law has Alzheimers. Whilst Alice's plight is very sad it is also oddly comforting in that eventually Alice is in a good place even though her family suffer from the loss of the "old" Alice. The author has a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard and has had a lot of experience with Alzheimer patients and so the book has a ring of truth that is reinforced by a great deal of medical information. This gives the novel authenticity but does inhibit the flow a little. A small flaw in what is a very moving novel.
General Fields
- :
- : Simon & Schuster Australia
- : Simon & Schuster Australia
- : 0.408
- : Australia
- : books
Special Fields
- : Modern fiction
- : 320
- : 1
- : Paperback
- : Lisa Genova