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Title: Memory's Last Breath
Subtitle: Field Notes on My Dementia
Author: Gerda Saunders
Narrator: Gerda Saunders - author's note, Edita Brychta
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
Language: English
Release date: 06-13-17
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 20 votes
Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs
Publisher's Summary:
In the tradition of Brain on Fire and When Breath Becomes Air, Gerda Saunders' Memory's Last Breath is an unsparing, beautifully written memoir - a true-life Still Alice that captures Saunders' experience as a fiercely intellectual person living with the knowledge that her brain is betraying her. Saunders' book is uncharted territory in the writing on dementia, a diagnosis one in nine Americans will receive.
Based on the "field notes" she keeps in her journal, Memory's Last Breath is 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 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.
Written in a distinctive voice without a trace of self-pity, Memory's Last Breath is a remarkable, aphorism-free contribution to the literature of dementia - and an eye-opening personal memoir that will grip all adventurous listeners.
Critic Reviews:
"Saunders...writes bravely about her early-onset dementia diagnosis, and nicely bridges the intensely personal experience of her failing mind with examinations of neurological science.... Her evocative writing shows her to be a researcher and craftswoman." (
Publishers Weekly)
"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 magisteria of a mind'.... A courageous, richly textured, and unsparing memoir." (
Kirkus Reviews)
"
[A] courageous and singular book." (Andrew Solomon)
Members Reviews:
A Balanced Book Including the Scientific and Human Side of Alzheimer's / Dementia
3.5 Stars
â And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life.â
--Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
A now retired scientist, Gerda Saunders was 61 when she was diagnosed with early onset dementia, specifically, micro-vascular disease. This memoir is her thoughts, fears, frustrations over the following years, the affect it had on her, her husband, her children, and daily life. From forgetting to include ânecessaryâ garments to struggling with minor to more major concerns. When to give up driving. When to say âno more.â
As the author is a scientist, it shouldnât come as too big of a surprise that this has a more clinical approach than other books Iâve read on this subject, the majority being fiction, but not all. I was hoping for a bit more of a personally involved perspective, but this has a bit more of a detached, clinical approach than what I was hoping for. She does talk about how everything affects her in a clinical sense, she just doesnât talk about how that makes her feel, even her stepping into areas of frustration seem removed and aloof. I understand that as a person, but as a reader it kept me from feeling connected.
