Dementia Friends Champion Helen Morris offers some thoughts on dementia awareness raised through a really ‘good read’
THE Costa Book Awards were announced recently and I was delighted to see Emma Healey, a 29-year-old, had won the ‘best first novel’ award for ‘Elizabeth is Missing’ published by Penguin.
‘Elizabeth is Missing’ is actually a thriller, a murder mystery, where the protagonist is a lady with fairly advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
I know that all sounds a bit improbable but trust me the plot twists this way and that and yet you are often in the world of Maud and viewing as a person living with dementia.
The book is very well researched with all the key elements well documented in academic research making their appearance as scenes in the book from the daily carer who delights in telling Maud all about local murders and muggings through to written instructions telling Maud she cannot go shopping.
The scene in the police station is almost painful but throughout the book Maud is never diminished. She is a heroine who makes things happen in spite of her condition and in her own unique way.
With views from her daughter and granddaughter and Elizabeth’s son, the book avoids sentimentality and has good doses of gentle humour throughout.
The clever part is that half the book is written from the late 1940s when Maud was a young teenager and the clarity of these scenes chimes well with the ability of people with Alzheimer’s to remember the distant past with great accuracy.
OK, enough! I was not going to write a literary review of this amazing book – I just wanted to whet your appetite.
I would love as many people as possible to read this book because they would gain real insights into how the world might seem to someone living with dementia and might therefore be a little bit more empathetic and considerate. But it is just a really good read too!
I am still up for any Dementia Friends sessions you would like to run so please do book me to come along and talk to you and any group for an hour. Call 07976 702171 or email helen@close-communications.com or check to see if I have any sessions booked close by that are open to the public: www.dementiafriends.org.uk
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