First published 1994
Michael Ignatieff watches his mother slip away piece by piece. The woman who raised him begins forgetting simple words, then faces, then entire decades of shared history. Her mind becomes foreign territory where memories vanish without warning and familiar people turn into strangers. The son who once knew her completely now struggles to reach across the growing distance between them. Each visit brings new losses as the disease strips away layers of the person she used to be. Her personality dissolves, her recognition fades, and her connection to the world grows thinner. Yet in the final stages of her illness, something unexpected emerges. The agitation and confusion give way to an unexpected peace that neither son nor mother could have anticipated.
Genres: literary-fiction, medical, biography-memoir, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
208 pages · Paperback · Vintage
Content warnings: terminal-illness