tangles a story about alzheimer's my mother and me

Leavitt obviously conveys the effect on herself well, but also has an understanding of how others are affected and how they learn to cope. She also packs the pages for a dense reading experience, the small illustrations coupled with captions rather than dialogue balloons, and there’s an intensity as she notes how her mother’s condition affects the entire family. Leavitt draws everything very simply, almost child-like in one sense, but with obvious compositional skills when it comes to detail and poses. Midge is the focus, though, shown as a loving and strongly principled woman, and her family struggle to understand what might be wrong with her when her behaviour starts changing. They were all relatively young when their own mother died, yet theirs was always a harmonious relationship, which Leavitt contrasts with her own combative teenage years in the company of her sister Hannah. That realisation occurs early when she considers her very different aunts and their relationship with her mother. As such it could be seen as detailing any normal family, and so perhaps not of any great interest, but that discounts Leavitt’s ability to envelop readers in her recollections and give them a resonance.

It’s a loving memoir of her mother’s life and influence, encompassing a broad look at other family members. Leavitt lived on the other side of Canada at the time, so was only able to visit a few times a year, making sketches and notes as documentation to aid her own poor memory in the future, and these eventually coalesced into Tangles. When anyone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease it’s sad, but it happened to Sarah Leavitt’s mother at the tragically early age of 52.

Tangles a story about alzheimer's my mother and me