Andrea Gillies' brilliantly cogent investigations into the way Alzheimer's works are interwoven with her mother-in-law's unravelling grasp on reality.

About the Author
Andrea Gillies has had a diverse career, encompassing writing, publicity work, the editorship of the Good Beer Guide, travel and reference book editing, and writing a drinks column for Scotland on Sunday newspaper. She's spent most of the last 18 years raising children, and latterly, living in a mansion on a remote peninsula in northern Scotland.

Reviews
It's a fantastic book - down to earth and darkly comic in places. The judges found it compelling.
A wonderful book honest, upsetting, tender, sometimes angry, often funny which takes us on a journey into dementia and explores what it means to be human.
This is not another guide to be added to the depressing pile by the bedside for those who are confronting the decline of a relative. It is as much an exploration of memory, its loss and the subsequent erosion of personality, as a chronicle of the destructive chaos that the onset of Alzheimer's unleashes on the extended family... Somehow, despite the territory, Gillies manages to steer the book away from misery lit and beneath the profoundly bleak narrative runs a stream of grim humour. Most powerful, however, is Nancy's own voice, carefully recorded by Gillies in nightly diary entries, a voice that is at times cantankerous, bewildered and defiant. Reading these monologues, we get very close to understanding what it feels like to experience this illness... What makes this book so unexpected is the honesty with which Gillies records the catastrophic consequences of this well-intentioned act. * The Guardian *
Terrific, terrifying, absolutely powerful in every choice of word, every sentence... completely unflinching


Awards
Winner of Orwell Prize 2010 and Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2009.



Book Information
ISBN 9781906021993
Author Andrea Gillies
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Short Books Ltd
Publisher Octopus Publishing Group