Alice LaPlante imagines herself into the mind of an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Any number of non-fiction books can give you symptoms and describe the illness but it takes a gifted and intuitive author to get inside, to show us what it must be like for the sufferer. Part of the value of the Mind Prize is that it accepts both fiction and non-fiction and this year’s worthy winner, Turn of Mind is both a strongly plotted murder mystery and a revelatory exploration of a disease such as Alzheimer’s.
Like for Like Reading Keeper, Andrea Gillies And Still the Music Plays, Graham Stokes Paperback 244 pages Hawker Publications 30th September 2010 978187490952
Vivienne Parry, Chair of the judging panel said: ‘Technically daring, Turn of Mind tells a gripping story in the voice of someone actually afflicted with Alzheimer’s and emphatically confirms the ability of literature to tell us more about the heart and soul of an illness than any text book. Hats off to Alice LaPlante for carrying off this prize for her very first novel, particularly against such stiff competition.’
The New York Times bestsellera stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman's deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse. As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White's best friend, Amanda, who lived down the block, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect and she herself doesn't know whether she did it. Told in White's own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friendstwo proud, forceful women who were at times each other's most formidable adversaries. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White's relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White's shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it? ';An electrifying book. Thought-provoking, humane, funny, tragic, a tour de force that can't be a first noveland yet it is.' Ann Packer, New York Timesbestselling author ';This poignant debut immerses us in dementia's complex choreography... [A] lyrical mosaic, an indelible portrait of a disappearing mind.' People ';LaPlante has imagined a lunatic landscape well. The twists and turns of mind this novel charts are haunting and original.' The New York Times Book Review
