Painted Diaries: A Mother and Daughter's Exprience through Alzheimer's - Hardcover

Zabbia, Kim Howes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 157749007X ISBN 13: 9781577490074

Publisher: Fairview Press, 1996

Synopsis

The powerful story of a mother and daughter writing and painting through Alzheimer's.

About this title

Review:

In 1985, Lou Howes learned she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's, a disease that indiscriminately strips away memory and ability. At 61, Howes was a gregarious small-town reporter in Louisiana and mother of three grown children, a woman who could light matches with shots from a .22. Her daughter Kim Howes Zabbia weaves together journals kept by Howes and her own journey as an artist as they embark on an eight-year odyssey through the disintegration of a mind. This account of how their whole family coped (or didn't cope) is by turns poignant, funny, frightening, and ingenious.

From Library Journal:

Lou Howes, a newspaper reporter, kept a diary until Alzheimer's disease robbed her of her ability to read and write. Her daughter, Kim Howes Zabbia, a teacher, writer, and artist, took excerpts from this journal and interspersed them with her own writings and paintings to provide a moving, intimate portrait of a family coping with what Lou called "Al, Mrs. Zheimer's son." We feel Lou's pain and frustration as she tries to cope with her loss of memory and mourn the slow transformation of a once witty and vibrant woman into a shell of her former self. During the course of her mother's illness, Zabbia began work on her master's in fine arts at Louisiana State University. Her art eventually became a means of expressing the emotional bond between mother and daughter, a psychological bridge created by her venture into the surreal world of Alzheimer's disease. Told with love, humor, and sensitivity, this eloquent account is recommended for all collections.?Jodith Janes, Cleveland Clinic Fdn., Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fairview Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 157749007X
• ISBN 13: 9781577490074
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224