Unraveling the Mysteries of Dementia: Robert Kolker’s Deep Dive into Love, Loss, and the Vanishing Family
R.K.: I love family stories because they give you a chance to really get to know people all through their lives. By the time the next generation starts to experience something, you really feel it in an intimate way because you know their parents and a lot of the context for everything that happens to them. It takes a little work to guide readers through so many names at first, but I love that challenge because the payoff, to me, is this greater level of intimacy.
L.L.: Nearly all of these siblings are high-functioning, over-achieving type people. They are musicians, mathematicians, engineers, scientists, well-liked…and then one by one, they change, their former selves vanishing. Then, the unexplainable…poor hygiene, neglect, lack of bonding with their children, job loss, hoarding, wandering, living in filth, forgetting to pay bills. There are multiple divorces. They seem to lack all sense of decorum, and emotions like embarrassment or remorse diminish. It would be easy to say it was something else. What were some of the ‘something elses’ that were explored?
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