Product Description
Heavy Snow is the illustrated story of a middle-aged man who must care for his aging father, a retired minister with Alzheimer's. The author weaves a poignant story of childhood, the dynamics of father/son estrangement, and a father's death, deftly detailing the progressive stages of the disease and their ramifications on the patient, caregiver and family.
The conservative minister father and the Bohemian artist son struggle with a turbulent relationship for forty years. It is only through caring for his father during his illness that the son finally comes to terms with him - and finds peace within himself.
A moving, personal yet universal tale about the pain, sadness, resentment and confusion entailed by becoming a caregiver to one's own parents. Its innovative and unique illustrated format captures the overwhelming and often inexpressible feelings that arise as we each struggle to accept the inevitable aging and deterioration of our parents. Because of its sensitivity and honesty, this book will appeal not only to readers in situations similar to what the book describes, but to all readers--for losing our parents is an inescapable sorrow that we all must face and, eventually, bear. Readers will turn again and again to Heavy Snow for support, comfort and inspiration to help them come to terms with that inevitability in their own unique ways.
About the Author
JOHN HAUGSE is an award-winning professional animator and filmmaker. His honors include the John Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as awards from the New York and Ann Arbor Film Festivals. He wrote and animated the PBS special Honore Daumier: Witness to a Century, which won the New York Film Festival's gold medal. This Is Not a Museum, a project created by Haugse and partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, won the Baltimore International Film Festival's Cube Award, in addition to receiving other distinctions. Haugse has also enjoyed a long-term creative relationship with Sesame Street. In 1994, he cofounded Animakers, a company that produces commercials for Hewlett-Packard, Sutter Health and the California Department of Health. Aside from these commercial ventures, Haugse maintains an ongoing relationship with PBS and undertakes special projects for the Oregon Tax Check-Off for AIDS Campaign, a nonprofit organization. His personal experiences with Alzheimer's while taking care of his father inspired him to write and illustrate Heavy Snow. John Haugse lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
by Martha Manning
by Arthur W. Frank
by Arthur W. Frank
by Lucy Grealy
