Lisa Genova Archives -

Sarah is a juggler, like many working Moms and stay-at-home Moms and women, in general, she has so many balls in the air at any given time that one of them must fall eventually. And it does, when one day on her commute to work, she roots around in her purse for her cell phone and crashes the car. Sarah, a bright and savvy business woman, a wife and mother to three children, is suddenly left with brain damage, a condition called Left Neglect. Basically the portion of her brain that sees the left and controls the left side of her body cannot anymore. She can’t make her left side work at all. Her left hand is impossible to control and her left leg slowly comes along with therapy and hard work. Left Neglected is the story of how she gets her life and health back and the lessons she learns on the way back to her former life. The title is also a clever twist on what she might have neglected before the accident forced her to slow down and reexamine her world. Lisa Genova is a unique storyteller. Sure there are many doctors that have come before her and spun beautiful stories, poems and literature. In fact doctors as writers could be an entire course taught in university English departments. Genova burst onto the scene a couple of short years ago with the blockbuster bestseller Still Alice, the story of a woman slowly being overcome by Alzheimer’s Disease. It was a stunning glimpse into the workings of the brain and the effects of that disease on the various relationships within a family. This is the thing I adore about Genova. She gives us great stories and brilliant insights into how the mind works. Sarah is a great character, very real and humane. There is a scene at the beginning of the novel where she describes her work day and the breakneck speed with which things happen. And then she simply observes when it gets away from her she closes her office door and permits herself a 10 minute cry before resuming her job. Shortly after her accident, her eldest son Charlie, rambunctious and impulsive is also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and he also has to learn how to make his brain work differently. It is an interesting parallel that provides smart lessons on how people with different brains change things to make them work. In some respects Sarah is living an American dream before it all comes crashing down around her and her dream changes. I enjoyed this fiction story in a different way from Still Alice. Both books offer some truly insightful pictures of how the brain works, but Left Neglected is a more universal story of the human condition. My only mild criticism is that the writing is secondary to the plot. The characters are strong and the subplot with Sarah’s mother is a nice touch, but I never felt as if the writing leapt off the page and sang. This is a book I couldn’t put down and also a story we are discussing at the National Book Club on EverythingMom.com http://www.everythingmom.com/ Buy the book, read along for the month of March and come join us!

Left Neglected, by Lisa Genova, Simon and Schuster, 2011, $25 US, $28.99 Canadian, 327 pages.

$$$$ out of $$$$$

I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in order to review. My opinions on this blog are my own.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova is a lovely, bittersweet, insightful l look, at the devastating diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Alice Howland, an accomplished Harvard professor, is barely 50 when she starts to realize her brain is beginnning to fail her. Forgetfulness is becoming an issue. She often is at a loss for words and occasionally becomes lost at work on the campus near the university where she teaches. She loses her place in a telephone conversation with her grown children often and simply isn’t as sharp as she once was. These small blips require further investigation and so she reluctantly and, with disbelief, consults her doctor. The diagnosis, while shocking, isn’t completely a surprise as Alice seems to know in her gut that something is wrong long before it is given a name. Early-onset Alzheimer’s. She keeps the diagnosis to herself for far too long, until she is no longer able. When she shares the devastating news with family, they react in their own ways, each one revealing different facets of the disease. To Alice’s oldest daughter it is particularly frightening as she becomes pregnant and worries the genes might be passed to her twins. Projecting into the future she also worries she may someday be a burden to her own children if she develops symptoms. Youngest child Lydia, the artistic actress, surprisingly rises to the challenge as caregiver of her mother. Their bond is strengthened by the mother’s vulnerability. Lydia chooses not to have the testing that would reveal her future health. Her brother Tom carries survivor guilt of sorts when it is revealed that he should not get Alzheimer’s. Her husband, John, a brilliant doctor, hides his feelings and refuses to believe his wife may someday be unable to remember his name. He is a secondary character at best in this story and he is sometimes unlikeable as the heartbroken husband struggling to decide if he can manage his feelings while unable, at times, to see the essence of Alice beneath the deterioration. John chooses work as a refuge from his homebound formerly vibrant wife. “If I am in lab, I don’t have to watch you sticking Post-it notes on all the cabinets and doors. I can’t just stay home and watch you get worse. It kills me.” can’t take it Alice. The impact on Alice’s family is dealt with nicely here in this novel, as each of Alice’s children struggle to decide if they will be tested for genetic markers that will tell them whether they may develop the same terrible disease. But it is Alice’s story that clearly dominates the novel and her character we feel for all throughout her sad journey. While this is a fictional story, Genova, who has a PHD in neuroscience from Harvard University, is an expert on the details of this disease, and I loved that I learned so much about the inner workings of the brain from this book. This book has all of the elements of a good story and has won a few accolades along the way including the 2008 Bronte prize and yet I felt the writing lacked sophistication and style. This is a great story and it is nicely written and I would recommend it to almost anyone, but the writing is simply good, not great.

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova is published by Simon and Schuster, New York 2007
The Mass Market edition was $10.99 in Canada.
thriftymommastips rating $$$$ out of $$$$$.

Thriftymommastips did not receive any compensation for this review