Love Anthony

Love Anthony
by Lisa Genova

Lisa Genova is a fiction writer who has the educational background to write about the subjects she chooses. And of course she researches her topics extensively, too.  Her first book about Alzheimer's and her second book about brain injury both related closely and personally to my life and helped me feel more compassion and understanding.  Love Anthony is about autism and I don't have any experiences relating to it, but I trusted this author to pull me into a story involving autism and finish once again with more compassion and understanding.  She didn't disappoint.

In this case, the story was less about the condition and more about the effect of it on the world outside it, parents, family, friends and strangers.

The story starts without revealing a whole lot about autism.  In fact I wondered as I turned page after page if it was really going to invest much in the subject at all.  I was following the lives of two different women wondering where the story was going to interconnect.  Ms. Genova is a good story teller and I was involved in the book, so please don't think I was disappointed.  Eventually, one of the women starts to write a story from the perspective of a young boy with autism.  It was fascinating as she described his life from his view.  He was indeed a happy child who, in his own way, was much more involved in the world around him than it appears from the outside.

There is so much more to this book than I am going to even touch on.  Not just the effect of autism on a family but other stories of relationships and struggles, boiled down to the four most important things, to feel wanted, loved, safe and secure (I think that was the last thing..?) I really appreciate Ms. Genova's attempt to bring understanding for what it is like in Anthony's world.  And lest you think she assumes she got it perfect for all children with autism, I will paraphrase a quote from the book:

Once you've met a child with autism, you've met just one child with autism.

The spectrum of this condition is long and varies greatly from person to person. 

Five shots of five for one of my favorite authors.

Still Alice

Still Alice
by Lisa Genova

This is a fictional story is about a woman who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. It's a topic that has interested me as the daughter and caregiver of a woman who likely had Alzheimer's. But lucky for my mother, she lived a long life and accomplished many things before she was disabled by the disease late in life.

The story is told through the eyes of Alice. She is just 50, a highly respected professor and scientist at Harvard. She begins to be aware of instances where she can't find the words she wants, misplaces things or becomes temporarily disoriented. At first she suspects menopause and makes an appointment with her doctor to confirm her suspicions. Her doctor thinks it is more than just menopause and sends her to a neurologist who suspects Alzheimer's. (The author admits that a quick diagnosis is not usual for early onset Alzheimer's disease. For the sake of the story she cut through the potential months and years of looking for the diagnosis.)

Alice's husband is a biologist and she is a psychologist with emphasis on linguistics. Through their Harvard connections they research treatments, medications and clinical trials. Unfortunately, there is not much hope for Alzheimer's victims. Alice develops routines and processes to help herself navigate her way through her days. She contemplates suicide and creates a plan to carry it out when the disease has stolen too much from her. Written in the first person, we feel not only her frustration as she stumbles through obstacles that never were before, but also horror as we realize how much more the disease has affected her than she does.

The story hit emotionally close to home for me. I have issues with my own memory, I have as far back as I can remember, so I don't know how concerned I really need be. But to know that I am not too young for Alzheimer's is a terrifying thought. Having cared for my mother as her life escaped her memory of it really allowed me to feel what Alice was experiencing as I read it. The story moved me to tears more than once. Alice eventually forgets that she was a world renown psychologist and very bright. Similarly, my mother forgot that she earned a veterinary degree in the days when most women who attended college became either teachers or home ec majors.

Alzheimer's not only steals your precious memories, but interferes with immediate memory, too. Listening to people speak is unbearably hard when you can't decipher the meanings of the words quickly enough to follow what is being said. Reading a book is impossible as well as watching TV or a movie. The Alzheimer's victim becomes a silent observer of people and things she feels no relation or connection to. Never mind that it's her own family.

Alice struggles with her relationship with her husband and although I felt he still loved her, he couldn't bear losing her while she was still there. Her children responded differently and although in different processes, all rallied around her, and at least one mother/daughter relationship was better than it had been prior to the onset of the disease. I found this very plausible having experienced a similar thing with my own mother.

I loved this book and felt it gave me a lot of insight to what my mother experienced the last few years of her life and also made me even happier that she came to live with us and I could be with her. I think Lisa Genova did a wonderful and sensitive job of bringing a face and personality to a disease that cripples so many elderly people and even more horrifically, many younger people as well. I wish I had read this book while my mother was still living.