Still Alice

Imagine that you have the kind of intelligence it takes not just to attend Harvard University, but to teach there as a tenured professor. Imagine now that yours is not just any field, but linguistics, the minutia of how language works. Oh, and you're also really, really good at it. This is the case for Alice Howland in Lisa Genova's novel, Still Alice. Alice is turning 50, she's at the top of her game--so much so that her marriage and the troubles and successes of her grown children are less important to her than her ability to shine at a conference. That's not to say that family is not important to Alice, it's just that she thrives on the intellect of her career.

Now, imagine your life beginning to blur around the edges just a bit. You forget the meaning of some of the cryptic notes on your to do list; you lose a word or two during a lecture. No problem, though. You're tired, over-stressed, jet-lagged, worried about your actress daughter with no college education. Alice barely registers these blips, and then eventually, almost casually, blames menopause, quietly mourning her youth. But one day, she goes for a run and gets lost just a few blocks from home, in Harvard Square no less, a place she knows as intimately as her front steps.

The diagnosis is grim:early on-set Alzheimers. Terrible for anyone, incomprehensible for someone like Alice who has always lived inside a brilliant, inquisitive mind. Alice is so freaked, she's almost in denial, which is understandable, but she also doesn't share the news with her family, not even her husband. There's a weird moment at a cocktail party during which I thought her husband had already guessed, but that turned out to be a red herring. Alice's choices and behavior are sometimes hard to fathom, but most of her reactions are believable. It's hard to imagine how one would or should react to learning such a diagnosis. Who am I to question Alice's reactions. Occasionally, I wondered if Lisa Genova meant to portray an unreliable narrator--after all, Alice does have Alzheimer's disease, and that does add an interesting discussion point. Still, when I read the "guide for book groups" at the end of this book (always a little amusing). was left wondering if some of the questions are so open-ended because the author herself left too many fuzzy questions for the good of the book. I do like that there's no pat ending because, how could there be?

When I cracked open this book--in a mad rush to read it for a book group--I immediately bogged down in despair. How would I get through a book about a woman descending into dementia? There was no positive outcome possible. Still, I read on, and am so glad I did. It was like my resistance to watching the James Cameron movie, Titanic. I knew the end and it wasn't good, so why would I want to watch the movie? But stories like these are all about the characters. There is also, I suppose, a certain amount of voyeurism, or even a "there-by-the-grace-of-God..." mentality. Lisa Genova's book was moving and affirming in the power of the mind and the power of family and love. Like Titanic, there is an inevitable end, but it's the journey there, and the details of the stories of those left behind that make it worth a read.