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The geography of memory : a pilgrimage through Alzheimer's / Jeanne Murray Walker.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Center Street, 2013.Edition: First editionDescription: xxiii, 360 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781455544981 (hbk.)
Subject(s): Summary: The author describes how she found hope and joy through forgotten childhood memories while caring for her mother over thousands of hours as she suffered through the heartbreaking mental decline of Alzheimer's.
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Non-Fiction Davis (Central) Library Non-Fiction Non-Fiction 616.831 WAL 1 Available T00548832
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Award-winning poet Jeanne Murray Walker tells an extraordinarily wise, witty, and quietly wrenching tale of her mother's long passage into dementia. This powerful story explores parental love, profound grief, and the unexpected consolation of memory. While Walker does not flinch from the horrors of "the ugly twins, aging and death," her eye for the apt image provides a window into unexpected joy and humor even during the darkest days.

This is a multi-layered narrative of generations, faith, and friendship. As Walker leans in to the task of caring for her mother, their relationship unexpectedly deepens and becomes life-giving. Her mother's memory, which more and more dwells in the distant past, illuminates Walker's own childhood. She rediscovers and begins to understand her own past, as well as to enter more fully into her mother's final years.

The Geography of Memory is not only a personal journey made public in the most engaging, funny, and revealing way possible, here is a story of redemption for anyone who is caring for or expecting to care for ill and aging parents-and for all the rest of us as well.

The author describes how she found hope and joy through forgotten childhood memories while caring for her mother over thousands of hours as she suffered through the heartbreaking mental decline of Alzheimer's.

5 11 37 64 68 103 147 174 175

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Preface (p. xvii)
  • Acknowledgments (p. xxi)
  • 1 The Phone Call (p. 1)
  • 2 The Choice (p. 6)
  • 3 The Roiling Heavens (p. 12)
  • 4 Foreboding (p. 18)
  • Field Note 1 Adages (p. 27)
  • 5 My Phantom Mother (p. 29)
  • 6 Falling (p. 34)
  • 7 Safe (p. 36)
  • 8 It's Igor Stravinsky (p. 40)
  • 9 One Red Cent (p. 45)
  • 10 Oh Bonnie, Oh Rayette (p. 50)
  • Field Note 2 What Is Memory (p. 56)
  • 11 How We'll Help Her (p. 57)
  • 12 Accounting (p. 63)
  • Field Note 3 Doing Research (p. 68)
  • 13 Naomi and Ruth (p. 69)
  • 14 The Bewitching (p. 78)
  • 15 Homesick (p. 87)
  • Field Note 4 Paying Attention (p. 100)
  • 16 Subversion (p. 102)
  • 17 The Fanning of a Peacock's Tail (p. 105)
  • Field Note 5 The Human Brain (p. 113)
  • 18 Learning Subversion (p. 114)
  • 19 The Archangel Gabriel (p. 123)
  • 20 The Reading Wars (p. 130)
  • 21 Remnant (p. 146)
  • 22 Kinhaven (p. 149)
  • 23 Michael (p. 157)
  • Field Note 6 Memorising Music (p. 171)
  • 24 Lloyd (p. 173)
  • 25 Moving Mother (p. 181)
  • 26 Graven Images (p. 192)
  • Field Note 7 Remembering Past Selves (p. 206)
  • 27 Last Kinhaven (p. 207)
  • 28 A Change of Heart (p. 213)
  • Field Note 8 Memorizing a Script (p. 217)
  • 29 The Divide (p. 219)
  • 30 Search for a Seminary Wife (p. 223)
  • 31 Siblings at War (p. 233)
  • Field Note 9 Making a List (p. 240)
  • 32 Nailing the Walls to the Foundation of the Universe (p. 242)
  • 33 The Choice (p. 250)
  • 34 Crisis (p. 253)
  • 35 Changing Places (p. 259)
  • Field Note 10 Acrostics (p. 271)
  • 36 Finding Company (p. 272)
  • 37 Friendship (p. 283)
  • Field Note 11 Cultural Memory (p. 296)
  • 38 Downhill Slide (p. 298)
  • 39 The Gentleman Caller (p. 305)
  • Field Note 12 The Art of Memory (p. 313)
  • 40 Alzheimer's Unit (p. 315)
  • 41 A Play with a Happy Ending (p. 323)
  • 42 A Million Countries to See (p. 327)
  • Field Note 13 Is Memory Essential? (p. 339)
  • 43 The White Room (p. 340)
  • 44 Learning to See (p. 347)
  • 45 The Good Scab (p. 349)
  • 46 To Celebrate Her Homegoing (p. 355)
  • Field Note 14 Ashes as a Memory Device (p. 358)
  • 47 Reunion (p. 359)

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