Read more
'What makes me saddest, is the double silence of her being. Language has packed its bags and jumped over the railing of the capsizing ship, but there is also another silence in her or around her. I can no longer hear the music of her soul.'
One day, the author's mother no longer remembers the word for 'book'. This seemingly innocuous moment of distraction is the first sign of the slow disintegration of her mind.
As Alzheimer's disease sets in and language increasingly escapes her, her son attempts to gather the fragments of what she has become, writing a moving, loving chronicle of the gradual descent into dementia of someone who 'no longer knows who she is, where she is or what will happen'.
About the author
Erwin Mortier wurde 1965 in Nevele in Flandern (Belgien) geboren und lebt in Gent. Er ist Kunsthistoriker, Schriftsteller und Journalist.
Summary
'What makes me saddest, is the double silence of her being. Language has packed its bags and jumped over the railing of the capsizing ship, but there is also another silence in her or around her. I can no longer hear the music of her soul.'
One day, the author's mother no longer remembers the word for 'book'. This seemingly innocuous moment of distraction is the first sign of the slow disintegration of her mind.
As Alzheimer's disease sets in and language increasingly escapes her, her son attempts to gather the fragments of what she has become, writing a moving, loving chronicle of the gradual descent into dementia of someone who 'no longer knows who she is, where she is or what will happen'.
Foreword
The heartbreaking chronicle of an illness, written by a son graced with enormous literary talent.
Additional text
"Few memoirs approach the beauty of this strange, angry and quite astonishing account of a mother’s tragic passage at 65 into dementia. Although he is a celebrated novelist, nothing else that I have read by this Dutch-language Belgian writer compares to it. The writing is simply extraordinary: exact, tender and very real in describing the disintegration of the forthright woman he once knew." -- The Irish Times (A Nonfiction Best Book of the Year)
'It makes no difference what subject Erwin Mortier settles upon. Everything he describes gains that characteristic splendour, that unmistakable, unique sound. Golden tragedy' - Opzij
'In this painfully beautiful novel it is ultimately love that persists despite everything, the love of a son for his mother. Heart-rending' - de Telegraaf
'Erwin Mortier captures his mother's dementia in sensitive and elegant prose. The splendid sentences with which he frames her deterioration throw it into unexpectedly stark relief' - Trouw
'A wonderful source of sustenance to survive the shipwreck' - Libération
'Erwin Mortier has surpassed himself. This is more than just an immensely touching confessional memoir about Alzheimer's disease. It is an essential book. Overwhelming. Mortier unearths at least one diamond on every page' - De Standaard
'Superb, staggering and even more... At once a clinical observation, a cry of love, a farewell and a meditation. A work of considerable significance' - Humanite
Report
"Few memoirs approach the beauty of this strange, angry and quite astonishing account of a mother's tragic passage at 65 into dementia. Although he is a celebrated novelist, nothing else that I have read by this Dutch-language Belgian writer compares to it. The writing is simply extraordinary: exact, tender and very real in describing the disintegration of the forthright woman he once knew." -- The Irish Times (A Nonfiction Best Book of the Year)
'It makes no difference what subject Erwin Mortier settles upon. Everything he describes gains that characteristic splendour, that unmistakable, unique sound. Golden tragedy' - Opzij
'In this painfully beautiful novel it is ultimately love that persists despite everything, the love of a son for his mother. Heart-rending' - de Telegraaf
'Erwin Mortier captures his mother's dementia in sensitive and elegant prose. The splendid sentences with which he frames her deterioration throw it into unexpectedly stark relief' - Trouw
'A wonderful source of sustenance to survive the shipwreck' - Libération
'Erwin Mortier has surpassed himself. This is more than just an immensely touching confessional memoir about Alzheimer's disease. It is an essential book. Overwhelming. Mortier unearths at least one diamond on every page' - De Standaard
'Superb, staggering and even more... At once a clinical observation, a cry of love, a farewell and a meditation. A work of considerable significance' - Humanite
