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 $$$$ out of $$$$$.

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