DLR LIBRARY BLOG

Still Alice

By

Lisa Geneva

Alice has a lovely happy life: married to a husband she loves, with three grownup children, and a job as a university professor in Harvard that she is passionate about.
She might be turning fifty but sure life begins at 50, and she has so much to do. Books to read and to write, places to see, grandchildren to meet. Life is good!

Alice starts to notice that she can't remember simple things, like words or the name of ordinary household objects, and when she gets lost,close to her home in a place she has been hundreds if not thousands of times, she decides to visit her doctor. Convinced that the temporary memory losses are a symptom of the beginning of menopause. Alice thinks a prescription of HRT and she'll be fine.
However Alice's test results come back with the diagnosis that she has the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease.

This book is a beautiful gripping story about a person living with this horrendous disease. What makes it so extremely poignant is that the story is told from Alice's point of view, we are inside Alice's head.
And although she might not recognise her own daughter or know where she is, the strong message she is desperate to impart is that above all she is STILL ALICE.

A lovely book that I would highly recommend.

Elaine