“Immensely lyrical and moving . . . a powerful display of Cathie Borrie’s talent as a writer.”
Steven Galloway, author of The Cellist of Sarajevo
A beautifully written meditation on memory loss, suffering, hope and love.
Jed Levine, Alzheimer’s Association, NYC
An economy of words and wealth of style that puts the literary into the emerging genre of AlzLit.
Henry Brodaty, Director, Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, Australia
A raw and exquisite dance of two minds . . . a breakthrough of a book.
Lynn Jackson, Diagnosed with early-stage dementia.
A penetrating investigation into the mysteries of the mind and how it recoils and resurrects, revokes and reveals . . . This is a narrative for everyone interested in the mind and how it shapes our perception of “reality” ─in and outside of the dementia experience.
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Testimonials
The Long Hello is an account of Alzheimer’s which, to my knowledge, is unique in its ambition and structure. First, because it undercuts current dialogue between mother and daughter with recreated accounts of their past life together. Secondly, because the daughter gives her insights into the seven-year caring process, and, through extracts from recorded conversations, we also gain the mother’s perspective. But that is not all: miraculously, both individuals have deeply expressive ways of turning the highs and lows into poetry. The result is not only heartfelt and heartbreaking, but a considerable work of art.JOHN KILLICK Poet, Dementia Positive Cathie Borrie’s groundbreaking lyrical memoir, “A Long Hello”, utilizes arrestingly poetic prose to create an ideological sea change in the way in which individuals and society at large view the experience of Alzheimer’s, shining new light on the rich emotional and intellectual ways of being that are newly possible in the altering world of the dementia mind.
FRANCESCA ROSENBERG Director, Community and Access Programs MoMA, NYC Some books simply must exist and this is one of them. In this fable-like memoir we encounter the fierce loyalty of a mother and daughter refusing the isolation of Alzheimer’s. Inside their conversations we encounter a unique voice in memoir. The voice of a mother now unfettered by grammar and propriety: a candid, poetic, and surprisingly thought-provoking voice. In turn, we encounter a daughter taking her own liberties to reconstruct the abandoned, dead-ended family stories of which she is becoming the sole survivor.
BETSY WARLAND nonfiction writer, poet, essayist, teacher, and editor; Director of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University; author of eleven books of poetry and creative nonfiction. Her most recent book is Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, a collection of twenty-four personal essays (Cormorant Books, 2010) An honest and real look into the conflicting and complex feelings of a caregiving daughter, and the soul of a relationship that endures despite the challenges of cognitive loss. Cathie and her mother remain a blue-ribbon winning team. aregivers will recognize themselves both in the mix of light moments of connection, and in the darker, unspeakable, intolerable emotions. Professionals will experience the exhausting, all-encompassing, exquisitely detailed demands of caring for a parent who is both no longer the same and at the same time in very profound and real ways, is. Cathie Borrie finds poetry in her mother’s language, and teaches us all important lessons about the human experience of caring.
JED A. LEVINE Executive Vice President & Director, Programs and Services, Alzheimer’s Association, New York City Chapter
