Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Alice is a Harvard professor, a mother of two adult children and the wife of a fellow professor with whom she's co-written a scholarly book. She walks to her office, runs to stay in shape and, as an over-achiever, isn't any too keen on her daughter's plan to put art ahead of a college degree. Alice is 50 years old when she learns that she has early onset Alzheimer's -- a diagnosis her husband has more trouble accepting than she.

Lisa Genova's all-too-realistic novel addresses the stigma that society unjustly puts on early Alzheimer's patients whose symptoms appear gradually and who, therefore, are at first as lucid and aware of their surroundings as anyone most of the time. We've heard of support groups for these patients' families. But how many Alzheimer's patients have their own support networks of people to help them? Alice finds none and, to her credit, starts such a group.

Much as someone given a year to live treasures every day, every moment more than ever, so does Alice. She hopes to keep her mind functioning well enough and long enough that she can hold her first grandchild and still understand who the infant is.  She wants to see the doctoral student she's been mentoring get his degree. And all those books -- there are so many she wants to read.

Genova, a neuroscientist, also deals with another less openly discussed facet of the illness. Alice at one point makes careful, detailed plans to kill herself when she realizes she has reached a certain point in her illness. I won't divulge what happens, but Genova tells the reader in an afterword that suicide is a common thought among people suffering early onset Alzheimer's.

The novel leaves some questions unanswered: Did Alice's husband know of the suicide plan? There's at least a hint that he did, but that's all it is -- a hint. And if he did, did he try to prevent it? What did he mean when he told his children  he knew something they didn't to justify his move to New York? Was it the suicide plan? Was it just an excuse to leave? Or was it something else, something unspoken?

I learned much from this book, not only about the disease's symptoms and effects but also about the ways the rest of us confront -- or avoid -- the illness when it strikes someone we know or love. Genova, a neuroscientist who has written two other books, researched her subject so thoroughly and wrote about it so elegantly that Alice's story could be true. And sadly, it is.