Death in Slow Motion: My Mother's Descent into Alzheimer's

By Eleanor Cooney

Book Overview

A raw, unsentimental and passionately written memoir about trying to care for a parent with Alzheimer's When her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother got Alzheimer's, Eleanor Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair. But the coping mechanism that finally serves this eloquent writer best is writing, the ability to bring to vivid life the memories her mother is losing. As her mother gropes in the gathering darkness for a grip on the world she once loved, succeeding only in conjuring sad fantasies of places and times with her late husband, Cooney revisits their true past. Death in Slow Motion becomes the mesmerizing story of Eleanor's actual childhood, straight out of the pages of John Cheever; the daring and vibrant mother she remembers; and a time that no longer exists for either of them.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0066213967
• ISBN13: 9780066213965
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

This book is a KNOCKOUT!

Lovely & fascinating piece of work. Her voice is so lucid, so deliberate, reminds me of what an old mentor advised me in my youth: "Full speed ahead, and strive for tone!"I loved the story, sad as it is. I loved the author's willingness to totally expose herself in order to honour her subject and craft. There wasn't a page in there that seemed like Ms. Cooney was hiding back behind it, it was all so up front...... And especially I loved the wonderful hilarious touching tough loose accurate lingo...... This is a beautiful piece of writing.

Ouch.

Realistic, harrowing, and profoundly honest account of caring for someone heading down the steep slide of Alzheimer's. Author Cooney's grief when she realizes there's nothing she can do to prevent or slow down her mother's galloping dementia is stressful to read; I can't imagine what it must have been like to live it, especially as Cooney's mother was always elegant, talented, gracious, and witty. To watch her withering dependence and confusion is horrific, and things only get worse when Mom moves into their house.This is a very harrowing memoir, not only of the disease's gradual destruction of an individual, but also what it can do to the caregivers.

You Are Not Alone

This book is a must read! You will laugh. You will cry. But if you have ever been a caregiver for a loved one with dementia of the Alzheimer's type, you will finally know--really know--you are not alone. Someone out there(E.Cooney), knows exactly what you are going through--all your feelings of sorrow and stress, all your frustration and guilt. Personally, I found I really needed to read this book. I thought there were no words to describe the intensity of the experience I went through with my beloved mother, who also had A.D. But E. Cooney's words do just that. Her honest story will amaze you as you hear your own voice echoing her thoughts and emotions. You'll ride the roller-coaster of high expectations and low disappointments, high hopes and low regrets, in the land of Alzheimer's. I wish I had had this book when I was caring for my mother. I knew of no one who could truly understand our plight, not just when my mom lived with me, but also when I had to move her elsewhere. Though back then I might have been too exhausted to read more than a few pages each day, even that would've been such comfort and encouragement to my aching heart, because I wouldn't have felt so alone. Over three years have passed since my mother died, and I am still processing grief over my loss and her sad decline. But in the pages of this book, I found a healing balm. Whether or not it was the author's intention, she has given me a gift for which I am truly grateful. Buy this book, and pray for a cure for this devastating disease!

A reader with the attention span of a small soap dish...

I don't read as much as I should. For me to actually finish a book, it has to grab me and keep grabbing me, from start to finish. The last books I've read have been Into Thin Air, The Perfect Storm and Touching The Void. Get the idea? I chose Ms. Cooney's book almost exclusively because of the title. Though I have read maybe only a couple of hundred books in my LIFE, I'd have to say this is, by far, the best book I have ever read. Ms. Cooney is extraordinarily articulate. If asked to describe an orange, Ms. Cooney would have 400 or so perfect adjectives and paint a more vivid picture of an orange than anyone ever has.So, yes, the book grabbed me. And it changed me. Her perspectives, and more significantly, her compassion, altered the way I look at life and existence, and the difference between the two. I am a better man for having read this book.Mike Downes

A powerful story

Full of compellingly realistic details and infused with the ambivalence all middle-aged people must feel when faced with their parents' disintegration, this book kept me up all night as I read it non-stop from beginning to end. After breakfast and a quick nap, I sat down and read the book all over again. This book isn't just for the children of people suffering from Alzheimer's; it's for all of us who have faced, are facing, or will face the aging and death of parents. I join the author in laughing and weeping over this universal human predicament. Thank you, Ms. Cooney, for writing this book.