DO YOU REMEMBER ME? A Father, a Daughter, and a Search for the Self

Unsentimental and unsparing, this work studies in unnerving detail what happens when the mind begins to separate from the body and how our society has no model for coping with such fragmentation. Everything disintegrates for Levine's father, a psychologist and liberal political activist, after his Alzheimer's diagnosis. He can no longer comprehend books and magazines, and continues to flirt with women but cannot be intimate with his wife of 59 years. Levine, a natural storyteller and author of the controversial Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex , presents more than a tale about one man's disease and its impact on his family; she also examines how society separates itself from those who can no longer think clearly. She explicates the mind/body issues inherent in Alzheimer's from multiple perspectives, invoking a host of psychologists and scientists. She makes herself examine her relationship with her father (which has always been fraught) and her mother (whom she resents for leaving her ill father for another man). Statistics explicate Alzheimer's prevalence (10% of those over 65 have it; 50% of those over 85), but Levine delves beyond the numbers, examining the socio-political psychology of Alzheimer's treatment and what happens to those who fall prey to it. As her father worsens, Levine gets closer to him. This is a daughter's poignant homage to a father she came to know best after he lost his mind, but it's also a searing indictment of how America treats its disabled and a cautionary tale for aging baby boomers. Agent, Joy Harris. (May 11)