Alzheimer’s handled with acuity, sensitivity and humour.
 
  “It’s the image of the freezer that I always think of. I’d have liked something more elegant but nothing else comes to mind. You’re defrosting it. Emptying it. It’s full of ice. The shelves, drawers and elements are sort of clothed in it. You put tea towels on the floor, prop the door open and leave things to happen.There’s the drip, drip, drip. Slowly. You take a peak, the ice looks polished, moist, with rounded corners. Soft. You look at it, busy yourself. Then leave.You hear a brusque cleaver-like thud: a slab of ice has broken off and fallen. Slabs of brain seem to break off in the same way. Boom, the Greek gods. Boom, boom, boom: Rousseau, Balzac and Proust. Boom, aunts and uncles. Boom. Memories. Boom. Eating. Boom. Your own name. Boom, who you are. Boom, your life. It’s over.
You end up with this alien and yet very familiar lump in your hands, unsure what to do with it. Should you leave it to melt? Drown it, warm it up or welcome it, like an exile, a refugee, into your own, already very busy brain?What do you do about everything that’s vanished?”
 
We’re all afraid of the subject. Spoiler alert: confronted with Alzeihmer, it can only go from bad to worse. In this book where humour further heightens the emotion, Mara Goyet describes the parallel universe of life in a nursing home, the loneliness and the humanity, the disturbing unfamiliarity, and her love for her father, in spite of everything. An un-put-downable book that everyone should read.