Review:
Seth's search for who his parents were before they became his parents, Abel's wait for someone or something, a potted history of Alzheimer's, and a folk tale of Isidora. Possibly not so much a story of forgetting as one of trying to remember.
I was glad I finished it, but it took a lot of persuading to get me passed the picture of Abel adoring his perfect brother's wife so much that he watched her wiping. Maybe a detail too far? I enjoyed the irony of Abel as the hunchback stay at home always aspiring to match his perfect brother, who turns out to be gay and suffers hereditary Alzheimer's, then kills himself and his wife to stop it getting worse. Able as the perfect brain and biological father of perfect brother's daughter, yet the daughter also has the Alzheimer's gene not Abel, as if the deformity of his back was enough for him to bear. The long term question would be the mental health of his grandson Seth ... has he inherited the time bomb?
I think this has a lot to offer reading groups, the 'history' of Alzheimer's, the reality of Isidora, Abel's not fitting in, even on his own land, the future of Seth. I read Isidora as the place suffers go to in their minds once they have left our reality, and I think there could be a good discussion regarding that as a mental place rather than a physical one. Particularly with the three sisters in different stages of Alzheimer's, one is there already, one a frequent visitor and the other waiting her time to go too. Which is the happiest?
When the one person remembered speech and disrupted Isidora for all causing battles was that the result of medical research? Was this the drugs working temporarily? This could even lead to discussions around gene testing, is it better to know that your are going to lose your mind and worry about it than it is just to gently mislay it?
The more I try to review this the more I find to disentangle and pick at. Well worth a second read and a good heated debate. Characters I cared about, not saying I liked all of them, but I formed an opinion about them, and good use of geographical and mental space.
I was glad I finished it, but it took a lot of persuading to get me passed the picture of Abel adoring his perfect brother's wife so much that he watched her wiping. Maybe a detail too far? I enjoyed the irony of Abel as the hunchback stay at home always aspiring to match his perfect brother, who turns out to be gay and suffers hereditary Alzheimer's, then kills himself and his wife to stop it getting worse. Able as the perfect brain and biological father of perfect brother's daughter, yet the daughter also has the Alzheimer's gene not Abel, as if the deformity of his back was enough for him to bear. The long term question would be the mental health of his grandson Seth ... has he inherited the time bomb?
I think this has a lot to offer reading groups, the 'history' of Alzheimer's, the reality of Isidora, Abel's not fitting in, even on his own land, the future of Seth. I read Isidora as the place suffers go to in their minds once they have left our reality, and I think there could be a good discussion regarding that as a mental place rather than a physical one. Particularly with the three sisters in different stages of Alzheimer's, one is there already, one a frequent visitor and the other waiting her time to go too. Which is the happiest?
When the one person remembered speech and disrupted Isidora for all causing battles was that the result of medical research? Was this the drugs working temporarily? This could even lead to discussions around gene testing, is it better to know that your are going to lose your mind and worry about it than it is just to gently mislay it?
The more I try to review this the more I find to disentangle and pick at. Well worth a second read and a good heated debate. Characters I cared about, not saying I liked all of them, but I formed an opinion about them, and good use of geographical and mental space.
Reviewed by:
Anne Sharpe 
