Slow Dancing with a Stranger - by Meryl Comer (Paperback)

About the Book

Emmy-award winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer s advocate Meryl Comer s Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a profoundly personal, unflinching account of her husband s battle with Alzheimer s disease that serves as a much-needed wake-up call to better understand and address a progressive and deadly affliction.

When Meryl Comer s husband Harvey Gralnick was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer s disease in 1996, she watched as the man who headed hematology and oncology research at the National Institutes of Health started to misplace important documents and forget clinical details that had once been cataloged encyclopedically in his mind. With harrowing honesty, she brings readers face to face with this devastating condition and its effects on its victims and those who care for them. Detailing the daily realities and overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving, Comer sheds intensive light on this national health crisis, using her personal experiences the mistakes and the breakthroughs to put a face to a misunderstood disease, while revealing the facts everyone needs to know.

Pragmatic and relentless, Meryl has dedicated herself to fighting Alzheimer s and raising public awareness. Nothing I do is really about me; it s all about making sure no one ends up like me, she writes. Deeply personal and illuminating, Slow Dancing With a Stranger offers insight and guidance for navigating Alzheimer s challenges. It is also an urgent call to action for intensive research and a warning that we must prepare for the future, instead of being controlled by a disease and a healthcare system unable to fight it."

Book Synopsis

Emmy-award winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer's advocate Meryl Comer's Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a profoundly personal, unflinching account of her husband's battle with Alzheimer's disease that serves as a much-needed wake-up call to better understand and address a progressive and deadly affliction.

When Meryl Comer's husband Harvey Gralnick was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease in 1996, she watched as the man who headed hematology and oncology research at the National Institutes of Health started to misplace important documents and forget clinical details that had once been cataloged encyclopedically in his mind. With harrowing honesty, she brings readers face to face with this devastating condition and its effects on its victims and those who care for them. Detailing the daily realities and overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving, Comer sheds intensive light on this national health crisis, using her personal experiences--the mistakes and the breakthroughs--to put a face to a misunderstood disease, while revealing the facts everyone needs to know.

Pragmatic and relentless, Meryl has dedicated herself to fighting Alzheimer's and raising public awareness. "Nothing I do is really about me; it's all about making sure no one ends up like me," she writes. Deeply personal and illuminating, Slow Dancing With a Stranger offers insight and guidance for navigating Alzheimer's challenges. It is also an urgent call to action for intensive research and a warning that we must prepare for the future, instead of being controlled by a disease and a healthcare system unable to fight it.

From the Back Cover

From New York Times bestselling author, Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, and leading Alzheimer's advocate Meryl Comer comes a profoundly intimate account of her husband's battle with Alzheimer's disease, one of today's most pressing--and least understood--health epidemics.

One hundred percent of the proceeds from Slow Dancing with a Stranger will support Alzheimer's research.

Review Quotes

This story is real. Meryl and Harvey are real. I don't know what it's going to take to wake the public up to this emerging catastrophe, but I suspect that emotional honesty is a key ingredient. Thank you, Meryl Comer, for telling it exactly like it is. - David Shenk, author of The Forgetting and creator of the Living with Alzheimer's Film Project
"Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a remarkable and moving story that will change the way our generation thinks about how we deal with aging and caring for those we love. An amazing journey of caring, love, and resilience." - Tom Rath, bestselling author of StrengthsFinder 2.0, How Full Is Your Bucket?, Strengths Based Leadership, and Eat Move Sleep
"Slow Dancing with a Stranger is a poignant story of Alzheimer's disease robbing memory, personality, life and dignity... Meryl's book is a daily motivation for me personally to find a medicine against this terrible disease which is impacting so many lives." - Professor Dr. Andrea Pfeifer, CEO of AC Immune
"Although [Meryl Comer] would say she doesn't deserve the recognition, she definitely deserves the 'Rock Star of Humanity' award for her caregiving and her humanitarian work." - Florence Haseltine, Emerita Scientist NIH and Founder of the Society for Women's Health Research
"I think there's a mythology that Alzheimer's is a passive fading away of an individual. Meryl's book highlights in a personal way the real story, the impact of the disease not just on the victim but on the entire family." - George Vradenburg, chairman and founding board member of UsAgainstAlzheimer's
A cry from the heart of Meryl Comer calls us to confront the scourge of our generation. Alzheimer's disease is laid bare as a slow killer of the health and spirit of the caregiver-- the secondary victim, who sacrifices her career and identity to care for a loved one who is lost but still here. Comer's pain is contained in elegant writing and finally channeled into a worthy purpose. But we cannot forget the human cost. Read and recommend this book as a call to action as haunting and urgent as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. - Gail Sheehy, author of Passages in Caregiving and DARING: My Passages
Alzheimer's disease is a slow killer of the health and spirit of the caregiver- the secondary victim. Comer's pain is contained in elegant writing and channeled into a worthy purpose. This book is a call to action as haunting and urgent as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. - Gail Sheehy, author of Passages in Caregiving and DARING: My Passages
Meryl Comer offers an unvarnished account of her experience as her husband's caretaker after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Comer has become an advocate for the need for early diagnosis and treatment for Alzheimer's. A poignant love story with a powerful message. - Kirkus Reviews
"Poignant, unflinching....[Comer's] memoir is deeply personal and all the more powerful for it." - Miami Herald
"Meryl Comer is one of my heroes. With unflinching courage, candor, and determination, she eloquently underscores the terrible toll that Alzheimer's takes on patients and families and the urgent need for us to address this unacceptable problem once and for all. " - Eric M. Reiman, MD, Executive Director, Banner Alzheimer's Institue and Professor of Psychiatry, University of Arizona
"Written with great insight and tenderness, Slow Dancing With a Stranger is both a cautionary tale and a call to arms as Meryl Comer helps lead the charge to beat this horrific disease before it beats us." - Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., CEO of Age Wave, author of Bodymind, Age Wave, Age Power: How the 21st Century Will be Ruled by the New Old and A New Purpose
"Riveting and necessary." - New York Times