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Summary: Death In Slow Motion: My Mother's Decent Into Alzheimer's
Review: After reading Eleanor Cooney's wonderful book, I feel much better equiped to handle my own mother's recent diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease. Eleanor said things I was thinking, but was not able to put into words. I laughed, I cried, but mostly I got a ton of wonderful, very useful information. Thank you Eleanor for opening your heart and putting your voice on paper.
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Summary: Compelling Reading
Review: Death in Slow Motion I'm Conquered. What a book. I listened to Eleanor Cooney speak at an author event and just finished her 'painterly' written chronicle/memoir regarding her mother's (Mary Durant's) descent into Alzheimer's. It's a Dali painting, with incredible composition and warped images, where perspective is askew, but the objects are recognizable.. Perhaps it's an Esher painting, where the spiral stairs leading upward never take one anywhere, or where the birds turn into fish, and then morph into frogs. Cooney herself is fascinating, a forthright and gifted author, hard as nails and weak as vapor. So also is,was, and in her own right, still is- her mother. Frankly written, stark, and relentless are words which come to mind when considering Death in Slow Motion. The book is much more than a journalistic tale of an encroaching, insidious disease; it encompasses both the day to day frustrations and trials, as well as the codependency, the panic by all parties, the aching, manipulating guilt, the failed attempts to find "the" solution for placement, and the shattered lives. Cooney is her mother's biggest fan and dearest friend, and the admiration and respect for what was once a lively, loving, fastidious, and brilliant woman prevail, even while life is crumbling and frustrations threaten ruin and a catapult ride into the ether. She includes details and tableaus of past history, family dynamics, and setting clues so that the reader can appreciate and become fully involved in this non-fiction siege with an empathetic eye and ear. Imbedded in the narrative is an ongoing tribute to her mother's husband Mike, and a shared love story of great proportions. The book hurts, but it is also enlightening and redeeming. Once truly started, I could not put it down. Death in Slow Motion reads like compelling fiction, with suspenseful intensity, yet it is all too real. From the dust cover: Carrie Knowles, author of The Last Childhood says, "Close to bone and fearless, Cooney gives voice to the tumbling house of cards Alzheimer's deals out to the family. It is a voice that screams, cries, despairs, and loves. Listen." And John Bayley, author of Elegy For Iris, writes about "the more difficult task of looking after a parent. Cooney's account of her mother, of love and despair and difficulty-but love above all-makes a most gripping, moving, and sensitive book. I hope it will be read." And I hope so too. Roe Wiles
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Summary: Thank you, Eleanor Cooney
Review: Eleanor Cooney has written a multi-dimensional and wonderful book--a story not just for those of us who have gone through the agony of witnessing a loved one slip away into Alzheimer's, but for everyone. Death in Slow Motion is brave, funny, sad, heart-wrenching, inspiring, and, most importantly, HONEST. If you have loved, you should read this book.
Thank you Ms. Cooney--your book was terrific.
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Summary: Moved to tears and laughter
Review: Eleanor Cooney takes her readers on the journey most dreaded by both young and adult children, that of losing one's mother. However, in this case, the mother is physically alive but mentally lost in the mire of Alzheimer's disease. Eleanor Cooney captures the pain involved in losing her best friend, protector, mentor-mother and reveals the embarrassment of seeing her witty, glamorous novelist mother deteriorate into a tedious, unkempt person whose conversations consist of these repeated phrases: "Where's my basket (purse)?", "I want to go home" and "Why did Mike (her husband) have to die?" Ms. Cooney writes a poignant and emotionally honest book about the transition from being her mother's child to parenting her mother. This process first begins with the phone calls of her mother's worried neighbors and continues through the agonizing medical and psychological testing and into the frustrations of navigating through the maze of residential placement. The raw emotions awakened by this disease - - the feelings of betrayal, followed by relief tainted with guilt - - reveal a paradoxical vision familiar to many caregivers, a vision portraying Dante's Hell and The Comedy Works. Woven into this black comedic story of loss is the gain of becoming acquainted with the vivacious personality of Eleanor Cooney's mother, Mary Durant. According to Mary, one of the world's greatest sins is being tedious. This book is anything but tedious and is superbly crafted and written. If E. Cooney were to consult her mother's image and ask her if she approved of the book, her response would be "Bravo."
Rating: 
Summary: A Cautionary Memoir
Review: I have read Death in Slow Motion, and found it a provocative insight not only into Alzheimer's but more so into its effects on the lives of the people bound by love and duty to their loved one. Ms. Cooney has every reason to dwell on who her mother was, it is after all the central tragedy of the illness. Alzheimer's does not just kill someone, it disintegrates, it degenerates the very essence of the persona you know and love. We do not grieve for the loss of a body, we grieve over the loss of a person and with Alzheimer's we lose the person long before the body they inhabit dies. It is not only Death in Slow Motion, it is also Grief in Slow Motion. I recommend this book to anyone who may be facing a loved one's descent into Alzheimer's or to anyone who thought they were alone with the experience Ms. Cooney so unsparingly reveals. I recommend a visit to the book's website for a more personal insight into the lives involved with this loss.
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Summary: DISLM is an overlooked literary achievement
Review: It would be hard to argue that Death In Slow Motion is not the most readable and realistic book to date on Alzheimer's. It's in-your-face and real life, and never once gets near the soggy sentimentality or the dry, meaningless scientifics that afflict most books of this type. Cooney holds nothing back; not the crushing financial facts, the near destruction of her marriage, the brush with alcoholism ... it's all there.
More interesting however, is that Cooney's book is also an overlooked achievement as literary memoir. One that, savage as the Alzheimer's narrative can be at times, still manages to elegantly light the interior lives of Cooney and her mother. Cooney is a seasoned writer who not only has her chops down, but knows how to construct that hidden literary architecture by which truly good books stand above the others.
Although the word Alzheimer's in the title and the story of her mother's disease certainly helped sell the book, Death In Slow Motion deserves wider readership by connoisseurs of good writing. By the way, the surprise at the end was a stroke of genius.
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Summary: Death In Slow Motion: My Mother's Decent Into Alzheimer's
Review: Lovely & fascinating piece of work. Her voice is so lucid, so deliberate, reminds me of what an old mentor advised me in my youth: "Full speed ahead, and strive for tone!" I loved the story, sad as it is. I loved the author's willingness to totally expose herself in order to honour her subject and craft. There wasn't a page in there that seemed like Ms. Cooney was hiding back behind it, it was all so up front...... And especially I loved the wonderful hilarious touching tough loose accurate lingo...... This is a beautiful piece of writing.
Rating:
Summary: Ouch.
Review: Realistic, harrowing, and profoundly honest account of caring for someone heading down the steep slide of Alzheimer's. Author Cooney's grief when she realizes there's nothing she can do to prevent or slow down her mother's galloping dementia is stressful to read; I can't imagine what it must have been like to live it, especially as Cooney's mother was always elegant, talented, gracious, and witty. To watch her withering dependence and confusion is horrific, and things only get worse when Mom moves into their house.
This is a very harrowing memoir, not only of the disease's gradual destruction of an individual, but also what it can do to the caregivers.
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Summary: A book aptly named
Review: There are two things this book is not. It is neither for the faint of heart nor yet another manual describing Alzheimer symptoms and possible scenarios for dealing with them. Rather,
it is the painful and painfully honest chronicle of Ms. Cooney's
mother's descent into Alzheimer's disease. It is a story of fighting the good fight and knowing from day one that you will
lose. It is a story barren of good answers and happy endings, but
it is a true story, and a brutal one. For those who have lived their own variation of the author's story, this book will provide a certain comfort. For those not
in the shadow of Alzheimer's, it is a grim and cautionary tale. The great strength of this book lies not in the story itself, but
in the honesty with which it is told. It fully and unqualifiedly
deserves to be read.
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Summary: You Are Not Alone
Review: This book is a must read! You will laugh. You will cry. But if you have ever been a caregiver for a loved one with dementia of the Alzheimer's type, you will finally know--really know--you are not alone. Someone out there(E.Cooney), knows exactly what you are going through--all your feelings of sorrow and stress, all your frustration and guilt.
Personally, I found I really needed to read this book. I thought there were no words to describe the intensity of the experience I went through with my beloved mother, who also had A.D. But E. Cooney's words do just that.
Her honest story will amaze you as you hear your own voice echoing her thoughts and emotions. You'll ride the roller-coaster of high expectations and low disappointments, high hopes and low regrets, in the land of Alzheimer's.
I wish I had had this book when I was caring for my mother. I knew of no one who could truly understand our plight, not just when my mom lived with me, but also when I had to move her elsewhere. Though back then I might have been too exhausted to read more than a few pages each day, even that would've been such comfort and encouragement to my aching heart, because I wouldn't have felt so alone.
Over three years have passed since my mother died, and I am still processing grief over my loss and her sad decline. But in the pages of this book, I found a healing balm. Whether or not it was the author's intention, she has given me a gift for which I am truly grateful. Buy this book, and pray for a cure for this devastating disease!
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