Where Memories Go Why Dementia Changes Everything - Now with a New Chapter Synopsis
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK NOW WITH A NEW CHAPTER - Facebook.com/WhereMemoriesGo Scottish broadcaster and author Sally Magnusson cared with her two sisters for their mother Mamie during many years of living with dementia. Sad and funny, wise and honest, this deeply intimate account of insidious losses and unexpected joys is also a call to arms that challenges us all to think differently. This book began as an attempt to hold on to my witty, storytelling mother with the one thing I had to hand. Words. Then, as the enormity of the social crisis my family was part of began to dawn, I wrote with the thought that other forgotten lives might be nudged into the light along with hers. Dementia is one of the greatest social, medical, economic, scientific, philosophical and moral challenges of our times. I am a reporter. It became the biggest story of my life. - Sally Magnusson Regarded as one of the finest journalists of her generation, Mamie Baird Magnusson's whole life was a celebration of words - words that she fought to retain in the grip of a disease which is fast becoming the scourge of the 21st century. Married to writer and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson, they had five children of whom Sally is the eldest. As well as chronicling the anguish, the frustrations and the unexpected laughs and joys that she and her sisters experienced while accompanying their beloved mother on the long dementia road for eight years until her death in 2012, Sally Magnusson seeks understanding from a range of experts and asks penetrating questions about how we treat older people, how we can face one of the greatest social, medical, economic and moral challenges of our times, and what it means to be human. An extraordinary and deeply personal memoir, a manifesto and a call to arms, in one searingly beautiful narrative.
'Touching... There are many moments of heartwarming sentiment. Literary snowdrops grow out of the barren earth... This book is the constant, tenuous but vital reconnection between a child and its mother... A fine book.' AA Gill, The Sunday Times
'The whole point of this book is that it starts with love. It opens out into medicine, philosophy, reportage from both sides of the Atlantic, but it only is able to be the profoundly moving book it is because it is infused with love to begin with. Books like this are difficult to get right: just a hint of emotional dishonesty, whether self-pity or even lightly veiled self-praise, and they flounder. There's none of that here, just the opposite: this is a book written with a rare combination of analytical inquiry - Magnusson is clearly appalled by our collective lack of care for those with dementia and determined to do what she can to improve things - and intimate, deeply moving memoir.' Scotsman
'Powerful'. Guardian
Author
About Sally Magnusson
Sally Magnusson is the oldest of the five children of journalists Magnus Magnusson and Mamie Baird. A journalist and broadcaster herself, she has been a BBC news and current affairs presenter for many years. She is the recipient of the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for writing 2014 and was shortlisted for the Saltire Literary Book of the Year award for Where Memories Go. She is the author of six other works of non-fiction and three children's books.
