I’ve been staying up late the last few nights reading a
great book. It’s called Turn of Mind
by Alice LaPlante. I had read somewhere, I think in Publishers Weekly, that the book was getting good reviews, so I
requested it from the library. I am grateful to the reviewers for pointing this book out
because I am loving reading it!
The book tells the story of Dr. Jennifer White, a 64 year
old woman descending in Alzheimer’s. Interestingly, it is told from her point
of view. I think the author does this masterfully, giving us a sense of the
confusion of time, the forgetting, the trying to make sense of the world, and
the moments of lucidity when she knows what is happening and what she is in the
process of losing.
The crux of the plot is that Jenny’s dear friend Amanda, a
slightly older woman and life-long friend who lives three houses down in the same
Chicago neighborhood, has been found murdered. She was killed by a blow to the
head and, strangely, someone has surgically removed four fingers from one of
her hands. Since Jennifer White is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in hands,
she is the prime suspect. But how to pin a crime on a woman who can’t remember
anything and who doesn't from day to day, even remember that Amanda is dead?
As we go through the book, we flash back and forward in Jenny’s
life, learning stories and secrets about her husband, who died the year before
the book opens, her two adult children, her complicated friendship with
Amanda, and about Jennifer herself. As I read, I am of course wondering about the “whodunit”
aspect of the book, but for me the more interesting part is the literary peek
inside this woman’s mind, and the clever way the author presents memory,
experience, and conversation.
I’m about 50 pages from the end of this book and will be
sorry to see it end. Kudos to the author!
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