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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | 362.19683 Saunders | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Based on the field notes she keeps in her journal, Memory's Last Breath is Gerda Saunders' astonishing window into a life distorted by dementia. She writes about shopping trips cut short by unintentional shoplifting, car journeys derailed when she loses her bearings, and the embarrassment of forgetting what she has just said to a room of colleagues.
Coping with the complications of losing short-term memory, Saunders, a former university professor, nonetheless embarks on a personal investigation of the brain and its mysteries, examining science and literature, and immersing herself in vivid memories of her childhood in South Africa.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Saunders (Blessings on the Sheep Dog) writes bravely about her early-onset dementia diagnosis, and nicely bridges the intensely personal experience of her failing mind with examinations of neurological science. Saunders, who emigrated to the U.S. from South Africa in 1984, includes "Dementia Field Notes" sidebars throughout the book that record ever-worsening daily struggles. These stand in contrast with the main text, in which she explores the essence of self, identity, and memories. Her evocative writing shows her to be a researcher and craftswoman, and to the reader her faculties seem undiminished. Saunders reflects on more than 60 years as a life-affirming dividual, an anthropology term that acknowledges that deep connections come from communal bonds continually established throughout a lifetime. She writes about her loving family life in her formative years as a white South African during apartheid, the cross-cultural experience of a new life in the U.S., and the challenges of parenting and academic life. Saunders draws on all of these experiences to guide readers through a primer on neuroscience, the unreliability of memory, and even the place of humans in the cosmos. Her discussion of whether and when to pursue assisted suicide is smart and does not diminish the hopeful voice of a self-described "Doña Quixote" as she fights her mental descent with dignity. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A former gender studies professor's memoir about living and remembering her life in the face of dementia.Before 2010, when doctors told her that she had microvascular disease, one of the leading causes of dementia, Saunders had it all: a successful career and a thriving, multigenerational family. She retired from the University of Utah two years later with "no whimpering, no whining, no despair," fully aware that hers had been a fortunate existence. Hoping to offer something that "could be actually useful in the world," Saunders began keeping a journal about her "lurch into that strange Country' " of memory loss. She started by recalling everything she could about an early life that had begun in the rural Transvaal region of South Africa. By "flesh[ing] out [her] shrinking self with former selves," the author would become "Doa Quijote," the madwoman questing for truth. Drawing on literature, scientific research, her family's collective memory, and her own experiences, Saunders crafts an eloquent, often lyrical book that, in its fragmentation, becomes increasingly affecting over the course of the narrative. As she speaks about growing older and wearing clothes that express "the way I feel rather than look," for example, she intersperses her reflections with "Dementia Field Notes" journal entries that bluntly address all the difficulties she must face on a daily basis due to her condition. The author's candor is especially evident in the way she addresses the way her dementia has and will continue to dehumanize her the longer she lives with it. Not wishing to be relegated into a zombielike "neither-dead-nor-alive" status, Saunders discusses the plans she and her family have made to help her die with dignity when her quality of life has dwindled too far. The book is remarkable not only for its fiercely honest, sometimes-poetic portrayal of mental decline, but also for the way the author effectively celebrates "the magisterial of a mind, the grant of an interval to sound the ordinances of a world without being." A courageous, richly textured, and unsparing memoir. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Faced with unspeakable loss, some may act out or give up. Saunders chose to write. After she was diagnosed at 60 with dementia, she left her career in academia and embarked on writing about her experience in a last stand of the mind. Those writings evolved into this deeply emotional and humbling memoir. From her childhood in South Africa through her family's move to the U.S. and her mother's own struggles with dementia, Saunders recounts a rich, full life before her illness began stealing her memory. In poignant journal entries, she captures the intrusion of dementia into everyday life getting lost, enduring dangerous mishaps in the kitchen, losing the thread of a conversation while speaking, and having trouble getting dressed. The impact of these losses on Saunders, an academic prone to liberally using literary quotations and classical references, is palpable. While she explores the fragile nature of memory and researches neuroscience, it is her personal experience, presented in a work of breathtaking defiance, that marks how dementia steals one's self.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2010 Booklist