Daddyboy: A Memoir

This vivid and moving reminiscence by an associate dean at Wichita State University about her father's deterioration and death from Alzheimer's disease in the early and mid-1980s is marked by the author's subtle psychological insight. Leonard Wolfe was a scientist, a rationalist, a socialist, an atheist and very much an intellectual, making his progressive mental degeneration from Alzheimer's all the harder to bear, for him and his family. His wife, a feisty, vibrant woman, was worn down by the burdens of being chief care giver; the grown children too were much affected, for Alzheimer's is, in Konek's words, ``a family disease.'' The author is especially perceptive about her mother's attitudes, ridden by guilt that she was not doing enough for her husband and unsure of the best care for him. An impressive work. (Nov.)