Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother and Me

by Sarah Leavitt

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 confronts 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.

• ISBN10: 022409422X
• ISBN13: 9780224094221
• Publish Date: 3 November 2011
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 10 June 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 132
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kait ✨]

Absolutely heartbreaking, this book surprised me in the best of ways. I didn't expect to cry so much while reading a "graphic memoir," nor did I expect to laugh so much while reading about Alzheimer's. This is a beautiful representation of Leavitt's life and family, and it's made me think about my relationships with my mother and grandmother in new ways. I really feel like this should be a must-read.