Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's - by Lauren Kessler (Paperback)

About the Book

A compelling, clear-eyed, and emotionally resonant narrative, this work offers a new optimistic look at what the disease can teach, and offers a much-needed tonic for those faced with providing care for someone they love.

Book Synopsis

"An excellent book...an emotional and ruminative anchor...She leaves her readers with hope."-- San Francisco Chronicle

One journalist's riveting and surprisingly hopeful in-the-trenches view of Alzheimer's

Nearly five million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer's. Like many children of Alzheimer's sufferers, Lauren Kessler, an accomplished journalist, was devastated by the disease that seemed to erase her mother's identity even before claiming her life. But suppose people with Alzheimer's are not slates wiped blank. Suppose they experience friendship and loss, romance and jealousy, joy and sorrow? To better understand this debilitating condition, Kessler enlists as a bottom-of-the-rung caregiver at an Alzheimer's facility and learns lessons that challenge what we think we know about the disease. A compelling, clear-eyed, and emotionally resonant narrative, Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's offers a new optimistic look at what the disease can teach us and a much-needed tonic for those faced with providing care for someone they love.

Previously published as Dancing With Rose.

Review Quotes

"A miracle of caring...Lauren Kessler manages to humanize the victims and shine a clear, compassionate light on those who struggle to care for them. Anyone affected by the disease has to read this book." --Barbara Ehrenreich

"Heartening and thought-provoking...Kesssler's feelings as a daughter and her experiences as a caregiver add up to a touching read, and the book offers some unusual ways to think about living and dying with the disease." --The Seattle Times

"...a magnificient book. I read it mornings and evenings on the train, Kleenex in hand, weeping. But laughing too. I have to thank you for really opening my eyes to the humanity of a group of people I would for"---Deborah Way, O (Oprah) magazine

Profound... Kessler learns that rather than stripping humanity away, dementia lays it bare"--Chicago Tribune

"This is the true brilliance of Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimers. It upends our assumptions and forces us to ask: What do I have to hold on to? Who would I be if my memories were stripped away? What is my essence?" --Los Angeles Times

"...turns our assumptions on their heads."--Baltimore Sun

"...an excellent book...an emotional and ruminative anchor...She leaves her readers with hope."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Revealing...tender...a riveting view into the world of people living with Alzheimer's." --Portland Oregonian

"...a gifted writer. Warm, uplifting, even hopeful...this book [is] a refreshing standout."
-AARP magazine

"Excellent... a powerful lesson in the humanity of those we often see as tragically bereft of that quality." --Publisher's Weekly

About the Author

Lauren Kessler is the author of six works of narrative nonfiction, including Raising the Barre: Big Dreams, False Starts, and My Midlife Quest to Dance the Nutcracker, the Washington Post bestseller Clever Girl, and the Los Angeles Times bestseller The Happy Bottom Riding Club. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, O magazine, and The Nation. She directs the graduate program in literary nonfiction at the University of Oregon and lives in Eugene, Oregon.