107 of 110 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Mesmerizing Exploration of a Deteriorating Mind, April 29, 2011
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Dr. Jennifer White is sixty-four-years-old, suffering from Alzheimer's and a person of interest in the death of her best friend, Amanda. Her days are filled with a reality that blurs and fades and sometimes is intensely real. The police suspect Dr. White is involved in Amanda's murder. She's an orthopedic surgeon and four of Amanda's fingers have been removed with surgical precision. But is someone with advanced dementia capable of committing a skillful murder without being detected?
The story is told through Dr. White's eyes. It's eerie to be inside the head of someone whose reality changes from day to day. We meet her children, her caregiver, and through the visions she experiences, her husband, parents and Amanda herself. As the disease progresses, we are drawn more and more into the complex, disturbing world inhabited by Dr. White.
One police officer needs to find the truth. She continues to question Dr. White after all the others have given up, and gradually, she pieces together most of the truth. While it gives closure to the reader and the police officer. It's too late to help Dr. White. Her world is dissolving toward the end.
I enjoyed this book although it was an eerie sensation to be so much in the head of someone with a distorted vision reality. I thought the author did an excellent job describing the deteriorating world of an Alzheimer's patient.
Although the murder mystery kept me turning pages, the investigation by the police officers didn't ring true. Perhaps this was because it was being told through a distorted vision. Still, it was a necessary part of the novel. Without some real life clues to follow the novel would have become too convoluted in the bizarre world of Dr. White's deteriorating brain. Well worth the read.
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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
AN EXCEPTIONAL STORY OF A WOMAN UNDER ATTACK BY HER OWN MIND, May 11, 2011
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"Something has happened." Jennifer White is writing in her journal, a record she's keeping ("It is my Bible of consciousness") because she is suffering from dementia, the intermediate stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Jennifer is 64. She has been a distinguished surgeon and she has two grown children, whom now she sometimes recognizes, sometimes doesn't, and with growing frequency confuses with her husband and mother, both long gone. "Termites [are] eating away at [her] emotions. . . . Robbing [her] of [the] chance to say goodbye." But now policemen want to question her. Her best friend, Amanda, has been found dead in her house down the block, and someone, someone with the surgical skill Jennifer used to possess, has amputated and disposed four fingers from Amanda's one hand. The detectives suspect that Jennifer either murdered her friend or was involved in the murder, but how can they penetrate the deep fog that now surrounds Jennifer's mind. And why would she have done such a horrific thing? Out of this situation, first time novelist LaPlante could have fashioned a potboiler, emphasizing the hyperbolic, but instead, and admirably, she has resisted the impulse to sensationalize and instead written a deeply moving account of an intelligent woman's descent into oblivion. It is also a mystery -and a good one--but most of all, it is a study of character under attack, and an excellent one.
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Into the Mind of a Woman with Dementia, June 16, 2011
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Dr. Jennifer White has early onset Alzheimer's disease at 64 years old. Once an esteemed orthopedic surgeon specializing in surgery of the hands, she is now unable to remember things from minute to minute, unable to recognize her son Mark or her daughter Fiona most of the time. Her mind goes in and out from fog to lucidity but the lucidity, for the most part, are memories of her early life. In Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante, the reader gets deeply into the mind of a woman with dementia. It is very realistic and fascinating. Having a mother with dementia and being a clinical social worker myself, I can say without reservation that Alice LaPlante really gets it.
The novel is primarily about Jennifer's life, before and after the onset of her dementia. We go backwards with her as she remembers her marriage, her family of origin, her childbirths and her education. Complicating matters is the fact that Amanda, her best friend, has been murdered and four digits of Amanda's hand have been removed. Jennifer has gone from being a `person of interest' to the police to becoming a primary suspect. The question remains, however, whether she did it and why would she do such a thing. The digits were removed in a professional manner, in the way an orthopedist might do such a thing.
We go back with Jennifer to her relationship with Amanda. Both are very strong women. Amanda is one tough cookie, honest to the point of disregarding feelings and willing to betray a friend's confidence if she does not agree with their ethics. At one point Jennifer calls Amanda both "the inflictor and healer of my pain. Both." Jennifer has narcissistic tendencies, sees herself as better than others, more deserving. "People who take this to an extreme are called sociopaths, Amanda tells me. You have certain tendencies. You should watch them."
Mark and Fiona are both portrayed as loving their mother but not being entirely honest in their interactions with her. Mark describes himself as "Tall, dark, handsome twenty-nine-year-old lawyer, with a bit of a substance abuse problem, looking for love and money in what are apparently all the wrong places". One of the places he goes to for money is Jennifer. Fiona, however, is Jennifer's financial executor and she and Mark are estranged. The family dynamics play out very interestingly.
As the novel starts, Jennifer is living at home with a caretaker. She calls her disease "a death sentence. The death of the mind. I've already given notice at the hospital, announced my retirement. I have started keeping a journal so I have some continuity in my life. But I won't be able to live on my own for very much longer." After she begins to degenerate drastically, Mark and Fiona put her in an assisted care facility where she is often restrained because of her drastic changes of mood and aggression. She has reached a point where she is not cognizant of her visitors' names, even people she's known all her life. When things get hardest for her, she takes herself to a zone in the past where she guides herself through imagery and memories.
The detective on the case frequently visits Jennifer, hoping to find her lucid enough to remember something, anything about Amanda's death. Her children want Jennifer to be left alone but the detective is tenacious. If Jennifer is convicted of this crime, even though she is incompetent mentally, she will have to be moved to a state facility. There is a lot at stake here.
Alice LaPlante writes like a pro. I'd never guess this is a debut novel. It reads fluidly and builds up cadence and tension. I hated to put it down and, thankfully, was able to finish it in two days. I look forward to LaPlante's books down the road. She has a great gift.
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