Mother in the Middle: A Biologist's Story of Caring for Parent and Child [Hardcover]

Sybil Lockhart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2009

Sybil Lockhart, a Berkeley neurobiologist, became a "mother in the middle" when she was pregnant with her second daughter and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. What makes Sybil's story different, and so powerful, is that she understood the neurological processes, by turns exciting and devastating, that were taking place in the brains of those she loved. Interweaving her scientific expertise with her own complicated emotions, she writes with elegant simplicity and breathtaking honesty about biology's inevitable, powerful effects on the people around her.

When her mother begins to show the first subtle signs of the disease that is slowly ravaging her brain, Sybil refuses to consider the possibility of dementia, insisting that all her mother needs is a daughter nearby. She relocates her young family to her beloved San Francisco Bay Area, where her memories of her mother and her childhood are deeply anchored. As Sybil sets about creating new memories against the backdrop of her past, the emerging undeniable truth about her mother's condition threatens to overwhelm her ability to maintain her career, nurture her marriage, raise her young daughter, and care for herself during her second pregnancy. Even though she appreciates the beauty of the dramatic biological processes at work inside the brains of her family members, she also understands their inevitable power, and she bravely describes the complicated emotions -- denial, rage, ambivalence, exhaustion -- that so many caregivers experience.

With a unique combination of science and intimate experience, Mother in the Middle is a story of mothers and daughters, science and creativity, and life's exquisite intertwining of love and loss.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this impressive debut memoir, Lockhart, a former UC-Berkeley neurobiologist, chronicles her struggle to raise two daughters while tending her own mother, rapidly deteriorating from Alzheimer's. A masterful storyteller and lyrical in describing biological processes, Lockhart renders perceptive family portraits, tracing how the mundane movements that anchor everyday life—driving to the grocery store, making coffee, folding laundry—can warp when stymied by dementia, and strain even the strongest relationships: The distress Ma projects when her schedule is disrupted infects me immediately. Lockhart treats her mother's mental unraveling as a painful foil to the budding vitality of her own growing family, but it is the intense relationship with her mother that emerges as the book's central duet. For all her fascination with the minute workings of neurobiology and the development and decline of the brain, Lockhart suggests how easily her scientific knowledge is thwarted by her denial as a daughter. The question of who is the parent and who is the child—asked by so many dealing with Alzheimer's—remains unsettled long after Lockhart's drama arrives at its honest, if startling, conclusion. (Feb. 3)
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Review

"Mother in the Middle is a caregiver's journey told from the most unique vantage point. As a neurobiologist, Sybil Lockhart reveals a fascinating view into an Alzheimer's we normally can't see -- into the very molecules and neurons gone haywire inside her mother's brain. As a daughter, Lockhart reveals her mother's Alzheimer's as she sees and feels it with unflinching honesty, empathy, and love. It is a story about losing a mother and becoming a mother, about a mother's mind, told from a daughter's heart." -- Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice

"Sybil Lockhart's insights as a neurobiologist and a daughter watching her mother disintegrate from dementia are meaningful and poignant -- and her writing about mothering her own daughters equally so. In the midst of the pain are uplifting lessons and a new map for living with the illness of a loved one." -- Richard M. Cohen, New York Times bestselling author of Blindsided and Strong at the Broken Places

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; 1 edition (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416541551
• ISBN-13: 978-1416541554
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,808,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Will resonate with every working mother..., February 17, 2009

By 

Monica J. Kern (Lexington, KY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Mother in the Middle: A Biologist's Story of Caring for Parent and Child (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This is a nicely written memoir of one woman's struggle to balance work and family obligations and the pain of seeing one's mother's slow but inexorable deterioration through Alzheimer's disease. What makes this memoir noteworthy is that it is half memoir and half neuroscience primer; Lockhart is a neurobiologist and writes of the changes occurring within the brains of her children and her mother with a dispassionate eye while simultaneously being able to convey the anguish of watching a loved one succumb to a truly nasty disease. This merging of science and memoir makes this book distinctive, but I am not convinced it was entirely successful. Readers who are curious about the inner workings of the brain will find the science digressions interesting and informative; others who care primarily about Lockhart's narrative may find the digressions overly long and intrusive.

I was impressed by the raw honesty Lockhart was able to express about some of life's most personal and private relationships. She relates arguments with her husband with an immediacy that I almost felt like an uncomfortable eavesdropper, but I found in those passages the echo of all my own complicated ambivalence about attempting to Do It All as a working mom. And perhaps the aspect of the book I found most heartrending and compelling was Lockhart's admission that she felt angry at her mother for not being the mother she wanted her to be. Most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, have had similar feelings at one point or another. Reading Lockhart's journey as she confronted and ultimately adapted to her conflicting emotions helped me to recognize and process those feelings in myself--and that is a hallmark of a worthy book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Been there, doing that?, January 27, 2009

By 

Judith Paley (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Mother in the Middle: A Biologist's Story of Caring for Parent and Child (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Kids to the left of me, my husband to the right, here I am
Stuck in the middle with you.
(My apologies to Egan and Rafferty)

That's an entire generation of us; on the one side teens testing our resolve (or, in Lockhart's case, kids so small they're just now learning to walk and talk!) and, on the other, an aging parent or two fraying our nerves. If you have been there, are currently doing that, or realize that you will go down that road some time in the future, this book validates, informs, and prepares. All of it, the wildly conflicting emotions, the mad dash out the door of your work to your parent's home, the frantic phone calls, the more or less tolerant spouse waiting at home--there's no dilemma or emotion Ms. Lockhart leaves unshared.

But, as a twist to yet another Sandwich Generation expose, the author brings the unique perspective of a neurobiologist in the middle--developing brains to the left and degenerating brains to the right (and do check out "Memory Lessons" by Jerald Winakur for a physician's take on this old, demented parent thing). I wish Ms. Lockhart had more deftly woven her scholarly brain text into her seamless personal narrative--at times they meld perfectly but sometimes there's too many paragraphs of physiology stuck in the pages with you. That said, just scan the parts that are a little too dry, and DO NOT MISS the last fifty pages. They're perfect!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Touching and honest, March 16, 2009

By 

Carol M (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mother in the Middle: A Biologist's Story of Caring for Parent and Child (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Mother in the Middle is a poignant memoir of a woman taking care of her young daughters and her mother, who has early-onset Alzheimer's. Sybil has a background in neurobiology, so her observations of her daughters' mental growth and her mothers' regression are particularly insightful.

This book does a fine job of weaving in the scientific background to the story. At times it does get a little too scientific, but for the most part it is very well done.

I am really impressed by the honesty Sybil Lockhart displays in this book. On the whole, Sybil is a saint in her caring for her mother, but she explains all her emotions and reactions - even the ones that you'd hesitate to confide to a close friend. It's wonderful validation to those of us that struggle with not-quite-sainthood in caring for aging relatives.

I was a bit disappointed that the memoir was unbalanced, telling us far more about the mother's regression than the daughters' development. I would have been even more intrigued if the girls' growth was highlighted a little more.