What do you do when your outspoken, passionate, and quick-witted
mother starts fading into a forgetful, fearful woman? In this
powerful graphic memoir, Sarah Leavitt reveals how Alzheimer''s
disease transformed her mother Midge-and her family-forever.
In spare black and white drawings and clear, candid prose, Sarah
shares her family''s journey through a harrowing range of
emotions-shock, denial, hope, anger, frustration-all the while
learning to cope, and managing to find moments of happiness. Midge,
a Harvard-educated intellectual, struggles to comprehend the
simplest words; Sarah''s father Rob slowly adapts to his new role
as full-time caretaker, but still finds time for word-play and
poetry with his wife; Sarah and her sister Hannah argue, laugh, and
grieve together as they join forces to help Midge get to sleep,
rage about family friends who have disappeared, or collapse in
tears at the end of a heartbreaking day.
Tangles provides a window on the complexity of
Alzheimer''s disease, and ultimately opens a knot of moments,
memories, and dreams to reveal a bond between a mother and a
daughter that will never come apart.