When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. Dementia, as it descends, has a way of revealing the core of the person affected by it. My mother's core was rotten like the brackish water at the bottom of a weeksold vase of flowers.
The Almost Moon ~ by Alice Sebold, 2007, fiction, 291 pages
I like what one reviewer on Amazon wrote about this book: "This is a story about mental illness, in this case, the pervasive illness of the main protagonist's parents, which leaves Helen lost in the miasma of lifelong dread and obligation. While we get the sense of there having been many earlier, and good, years of happy marriage and the mothering of her two girls, where things are now is empty — kids grown, marriage over, life occupied by the care of her deeply damaged mother, with no real prospects for happiness. This bleakness leads to an impulsive decision that slams Helen's life into a wall of no return."
From the back cover: "For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page."
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