She is very honest about her reactions and feelings as well as her attempts to cope with them. Sarah describes very clearly many of the various problems that occur with each stage of the illness. The format (a graphic novel) is fresh and will appeal to the younger generation who are just beginning to come to grips with this crisis. The story has a definite place in the literature available to persons who have to deal with this terrible tragedy. Stark details-accounts of tidying up after a woman whose body is no longer her own and trying to communicate with a mother who can barely recognize her family-are married with warm, funny recollections of Jewish-Canadian life. Her simple line drawings are rarely fascinating in themselves but they serve the story well, capturing facial expressions with subtle brevity and showing the subtext behind brave or cruel words as Leavitt's voice stretches from calm rationalizing to an anguished wail and back. Losing words and stories proves particularly debilitating for a woman who was once so enthused by them-with her husband, fellow teacher Rob, she "built a life of books and art and creativity." Leavitt responds in kind in this heartbreaking memoir, which follows her mother's gradual decline and her family's reaction to it. Her handwriting starts to wobble, she loses herself in familiar parts of town, and strange, "blankety-blank" headaches shift around in her skull. Midge Leavitt begins showing symptoms of Alzheimer's in her mid-50s. So far, the only published Alzheimer s-related graphic novel and highly recommended.
Useful for anyone with an Alzheimer 's patient among family or friends, for health-care professionals, and for graphic arts programs as an example of how simple art can tell a powerful story. Pairing words with simply drawn, evocative line art, Leavitt has crafted a glowing, heart-wrenching memorial to the woman who gave her such a gift. Says Leavitt, Our parents taught us, as very young children, that language, words, and books belonged to us, that they were exciting and powerful. Tangles is the work of a perceptive, creative, and honest storyteller. She brings a good eye for the telling detail-the small observations that reveal larger truths-to her memoir of a family in crisis. Sarah Leavitt uses the medium of comics to tell her story with more economy and power than either words or pictures could muster by themselves. Not simply the story of a disease, but of theflawed, complex, intelligent people whose lives it transformed. The power of this graphic memoir is not that itsstory about a family dealing with Alzheimer s is so extraordinary, but that ithas become so ordinary.The narrative is human, honest, loving andoccasionally even funny.
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