A powerful reflection on life with dementia and the importance of self-care.
Mauro reflects on becoming the caregiver to his wife after a dementia diagnosis in this memoir.
Initially misdiagnosed with depression, Carol—the author’s wife of more than three decades—had experienced a string of bizarre symptoms in her mid-to-late 50s. One Christmas, for instance, she ended up drunk after forgetting how many glasses of wine she had consumed, and grocery shopping—something she had done on a weekly basis for more than 30 years—had become mentally taxing. After failing to get sufficient answers from a series of doctors, the couple eventually met with a neurologist who diagnosed Carol with a form of dementia called frontotemporal degeneration. In this memoir, written chronologically from Carol’s initial diagnosis in 2018 through her continued decline in 2023, Mauro gives readers an insider’s account of the progressive nature of the disease. Carol’s apraxia (an inability to perform previously learned tasks) meant that she needed more help using the toilet, walking, sitting, and eating. Making the decision to care for her himself rather than send her to a care facility, Mauro tells a story that is both tragic (including the loss of shared memories and intimacy) and a profound testament to love. Sprinkled throughout the narrative are examples of the ways in which the couple maintains vestiges of their previous relationship, such as their shared joy in riding together with the top down in their Jeep Wrangler. “I found our drive together was one link that allowed us to still feel connected,” Mauro writes, adding, “It was truly quality time.”
While Carol’s illness takes center stage, the book offers plenty of insights into Mauro’s own grieving process and coping strategies. A previously published author who has written books about environmental stewardship and hunting, Mauro wrote this book at the behest of his therapist, who correctly believed it would be a cathartic exercise. Discussing his own struggles with panic attacks, anxiety, and depression since his youth, the author notes that “Carol’s diagnosis became a conduit that awakened me to life and the immediacy of each moment.” In the course of charting his own personal journey, Mauro highlights the spiritual practices that have given him solace. Raised Catholic, the author later became fascinated with Hinduism and Eastern spirituality, eventually finding peace in Zen Buddhism and meditation as a means to “use suffering to increase awareness of ourselves and transform pain into joy.” The book’s appendix material offers readers practical advice on how to manage panic attacks through breathing techniques, tips on how to practice meditation, and a Buddhist-inspired list of “Realities” that cause suffering due to attachments (“We all lose things we love”). Mauro offers readers more than just a narrative of his wife’s illness—his memoir is also a reflection on meaning, purpose, and life itself. Rather than dwelling in self-pity, or writing boastfully about the sacrifices he has made on behalf of his wife, the author offers a useful guidebook to anyone dealing with the heartbreak of dementia with a particular emphasis on self-care (as reflected in the book’s title). Mauro’s accessible prose is accompanied by a foreword written by Carol’s neurologist (and television medical personality) Dr. Gayatri Devi, and the book includes intimate family photographs.
A powerful reflection on life with dementia and the importance of self-care.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798886794724
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Luminare Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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