In the Shadow of Memory (American Lives) (Paperback)

by Floyd Skloot (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this remarkable collection of essays, part of the American Lives series (edited by Tobias Wolff), Skloot (The Night Side) conveys what it is like to live with a damaged brain. In 1988, Skloot was beset by a virus that left him with brain lesions (static dementia) that dramatically affected his ability to think. (Because of this condition, each piece here took one to two years to complete and was constructed laboriously in small periods of time.) He often cannot find an appropriate word and may say, for example, "pass the sawdust" instead of "pass the rice." He forgets faces, names, directions and how to perform simple tasks, and suffers from loss of balance. Skloot, now in his late 50s, movingly describes how, despite his losses, he feels enriched by the life he shares with his very supportive wife, Beverly, in a quiet rural environment. Of particular interest is an account of a month that the couple spent on Ireland's Achill Island. Another section deals with his struggle to come to terms with a harsh childhood during which his mother, now in her 90s and sliding into dementia herself, routinely beat and abused him and his brother. The author also details, without self-pity, how he was subjected by the Social Security Administration to a series of tests to prove that his illness was organically based and his disability status legitimate. This is an unusual and engrossing memoir written with intelligence, honesty, perception and humor.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* In this rarest of travel books, readers journey deep into the unimaginable world of dementia. But no dispassionate neurobiologist or theoretical psychologist serves as guide for the journey. In revealing the disorienting features of this strange mental landscape--the gaping lapses of memory, the sudden lurches in logic, the dizzying failures of balance--poet and essayist Skloot is taking us into the recesses of his own disease-stricken mind. With unsentimental clarity, Skloot recounts how a viral infection plunged him into the nightmare of severe neurological disorder--his memory ravaged, his intelligence impaired, his rationality unseated. What will amaze readers, however, is the poise--and even humor--with which Skloot turns personal catastrophe into literary reflection. These reflections convert neurological fact into poignant insight on how brain failure at once imperils and reveals the human essence. That essence shines brightly in Skloot's valiant struggle to deal with his own plight at the very time his mother is spiraling into the living death of Alzheimer's and his brother is succumbing to diabetes. Perhaps because so many of his memories have vanished into the black hole of disease, Skloot unfolds each of his remaining recollections as fragments of a precious mosaic of meaning. A remarkable literary achievement. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803293224
• ISBN-13: 978-0803293229
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #600,037 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What it's like "to be geezered overnight", July 4, 2003

By	Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: In the Shadow of Memory (American Lives) (Hardcover)

A fierce virus assaulted Floyd Skloot's brain overnight, leaving him severely impaired, mentally. With his productive life changed forever, he began painstakingly writing heroic essays about his experience. Against all odds (given the dour subject), the result is insightful, moving and often downright hilarious. As a writer of poetry and novels, Skloot is able to plumb the depths of his mind for just the right word or phrase to lift his tragedy to heroic levels. By the end of the book, you realize that he has come to the point of viewing his disaster as an opportunity to live a rich and rewarding new life - just on a different level.
Inspirational without being cloying.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, Absorbing, Enlightening, Enchanting, May 14, 2003

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: In the Shadow of Memory (American Lives) (Hardcover)

Floyd Skloot. An unlikely name, an incredible medical survivor, and a monument to the durability of the human spirit. IN THE SHADOW OF MEMORY is a memoir by a man who by rights should be unable to have access to memory. On December 7, 1988 ( a date he frequently references ) Floyd Skloot became infected with a virus that all but destroyed his brain. He was left without the ability to ambulate, to process information, to remember from moment to moment what his intentions were in the most basic maneuvering things of life. Prior to his illness he was a writer and a poet and after fourteen years of heroic struggle, he has been able to write about his journey to acceptance of his condition, his childhood as a member of a family with a highly bizarre mother, a distant father and a gradually self-destructive brother. So with all this permanent brain damage, how is Floyd Skloot able to produce this elegant, compelling, warmly humorous, insightful group of essays? Well, VERY slowly - is the main answer. He explains that it took about eleven months to write one essay, bit by fragmented bit.

And what essays they are! The first half of his book is devoted to relating his struggle out of the abyss of an obliterated memory of his past. In his words "Memory is what connects us and memory is what has torn us apart." It is a phenomenal, charismatic paeon to the strength of the human spirit. In the last half we are treated to meditations (with much humor) on "Kismet", "Pal Joey," and "Hamlet" as well as other philosophical meanderings. Finally he comes round the circle of a life that began with a cruelly obsessive-compulsive mother whose rigidity drives the family apart, to a point where he is recovering from an illness that has erased much of his unwanted past, and to a quiescent, final stage of Alzheimer's Disease mother. The irony is at once humorous and touching.

To Skloot's credit as a writer, brain injured or no, he presents this wild ride with quiet compassion and sensitivity without ever becoming maudlin. This is book for all of us who think we have had hard knocks in our lives: the teacher, the mentor is here within these lovely pages.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a remarkarkable, insightful, loving book, September 24, 2004

By	Henry Greenspan "Henry Greenspan, Ph.D." (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: In the Shadow of Memory (American Lives) (Hardcover)

This is the first time I have been inspired to write a review for Amazon. I do so because I believe Floyd Skloot's memoir deserves as wide a readership as possible.

His description of his own condition is extraordinary. I cannot think of another volume in which neurological illness is described so vividly "from the inside." His integration of relevant scientific literature within his account is always accessible and informative. And his setting all of this in the wider context of his life story makes terrific reading. He is candid, insightful, evocative, and poetic. We get to know him, not only as a writer and as a patient, but as a person--and he's a mensch. Although he lives far out in the country, he becomes our neighbor with this volume. This is of the most honest, perceptive, and well crafted books that I have read in a very long time.