In this powerful debut novel, Alice Howland is a 50-year-old
cognitive professor at Harvard and a world-renowned linguistics
expert. One day while out jogging, she finds herself lost in
Harvard Square unable to find her way home, though she is just a
mile from her house on a route she has traveled every day. This is
just one of the memory disturbances that she has noted she is
having on an ongoing basis. Soon she can tell that these moments,
which are coming with increased frequency, are not ordinary --- and
they are disturbing.

Trying to figure out what is going on, Alice does a quick Google
search for “menopause symptoms” and quickly sees that
scattered thinking and memory lapses may be caused by a lack of
estrogen. She notes to schedule a doctor appointment and shuts down
the computer, thinking she has this solved with some relief that
there can be a quick fix. Alice is used to confronting problems
just like this: identify the problem and find the solution.

But somehow it feels like this might be something a bit more.
While she muddles on trying to keep her life on course, the
fractures and fissures in her memory become more real. In one
chapter, she stands before her class to give the lecture she just
spent 45 minutes preparing for and realizes she cannot recall the
topic she has prepped to deliver. An eager student answers her
question about the subject from the syllabus, and she proceeds with
the lecture. Thinking that the day is on course, she gets home and
is relaxing when her husband comes in and asks, “Aren’t
you supposed to be in Chicago?” She had completely forgotten
a business trip.

Though the idea frightens her, she knows this issue of her
memory is far deeper than menopause and asks her gynecologist for a
reference to a neurologist. After appointments and tests, she comes
to realize that the diagnosis is far more dire than she thought,
and it will not be cured with a few hormone pills: she has
early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. She is told she needs to
bring someone to her appointments lest she not capture all the
details of what is being shared with her. She also is told that she
may not be the best judge of her own limitations and that someone
other than her should fill out the paperwork on the state of her
mind. Her world starts spiraling around her.

Struggling with these ideas, Alice fights these thoughts, not
wanting to accept that she is losing control of her life. She
thinks of filling in the paperwork on her own and shows up at
meetings alone as her doctor chastises her for this. Suddenly, in a
moment that she has not planned, her story tumbles out as she tells
her husband John what has been going on. He is stunned for a moment
and then recalls a party where it was clear she was not connecting
on what was going on. He knows in a moment that life has changed
with those two words, Alzheimer’s disease, but also
recognizes like a smack to the head that the world shifted a while
back but he just chose to ignore it.

The disease progresses swiftly, leaving Alice and her family
struggling with an unraveling of the world that they have come to
know. Where she was the anchor who held the family secure, she now
must lean on her husband and three children to keep her
safe. They need to pull the threads of her life together. They
need to know where to find her when she does not even know she has
become lost.

In due course she must give up her work, which is closure on a
particular thing she loves, a piece of the world that defines her.
At the same time, John is offered opportunities that he feels he
must take, which again remind her what she is losing. Frustrations
build, and the tensions that were bubbling beneath the surface rise
quickly. The emotions that swirl through these pages will tug at
readers as they identify with Alice and her struggles. For Alice,
the simplest pleasures like jogging and cooking become chores that
need assistance. For a woman who valued her independence, her
dependence now is palpable.

Alice is bright enough to know that the end here is not going to
be pretty, but she fights to keep control of her world, grappling
for control as long as she can. In what becomes a ritual for her,
she answers five simple questions on her BlackBerry each day. In
answering these questions, she reassures herself that things are
still status quo. But as the reader watches, a word changes in her
standard simple replies, followed by the phrasing, and then the
correct answer becomes completely muddled; while she feels the
answers are right, we see she is losing her grasp. When the day
finally dawns that she cannot even understand the questions, let
alone give the answers, Alice moves to the next step that she has
noted on her BlackBerry --- one that she wrote herself directions
for back when things just had started to dim. She goes to her
computer and finds the file called “Butterfly” and
follows the instructions there.

STILL ALICE has an authentic voice and a pitch-perfect tone even
as Alice loses control of her own words. Lisa Genova, the author,
is a trained neuroscientist who understands the science behind
Alzheimer’s from a clinical point of view, but she also
comprehends the personal tragedy that accompanies one losing a
loved one who is standing beside them as her grandmother suffered
through Alzheimer's. Told through Alice’s lens, the book has
a personal feeling to it that could not have happened as well in
third person. I know what Alzheimer’s is, but this story gave
me a lot more insight into exactly what it feels like. While I have
a better understanding of friends who are coping with their
parents’ travails with the disease, reading Alice’s
story where the disease struck someone so young made me want to
live life and enjoy it with renewed gusto since I saw just how
fragile the line between whole and broken can be.

In case you cannot figure this out, STILL ALICE grabbed me from
the first page. I kept reading knowing I was not going to get much
done until I finished it; I kept saying one more page, one more
chapter, until the book was completed. A friend was traveling with
me a few months ago and showed up late to cocktails. She walked in
apologizing and saying, “I just could not put down the book I
was reading.” When I asked what it was, she told me it was
STILL ALICE. We started talking about it since we both had the same
reaction. And I have thought of this story over and over these past
months.

There's something else to note about this book. It's being
simultaneously released in hardcover and trade paperback, a very
smart move by the publisher, ensuring the opportunity to get this
title into as many readers’ hands as possible, no matter what
format you prefer. Both versions have a reader’s guide and an
interview with Genova that gives terrific background to the book.
STILL ALICE will prompt conversation; it’s a perfect book
club book. I dare you to finish this novel and not turn to someone
to talk about it.