An emotional rollercoaster ride across time and within alternate realities that gives a unique perspective on Alzheimer’s as it follows Anna Metz Segal’s evolving spirit reliving over 80 years of life spanning the tumultuous 20th century.
Reviews:
I must tell you I loved it. (Kachuck) told Anna's story with such sensitivity. I loved the scenes in her youth when she was a young girl and woman full of hopes and dreams; I think (Kachuck) really captured the uneven nature of a person's personality at that age, how they are ahead of themselves in some areas and not in others. I was also fascinated by Anna's memories of other lives and times. I've never seen anyone interpret the loss of present memory in that light. It's brilliant and moving. - Alice Elliot Dark, author, In the Gloaming and Think of England: A Novel
Kachuck's narrative of Anna's heroic journey evokes some of the best of the various Latin American and Italian schools of "magic realism" by such writers as Gabriel Manuel Marquez and Italo Calvino. Anna's world is both very "here and now," even when she is experiencing her "visions" which are both realistic and as fantastic as the paintings of Marc Chagall. - Robert Cohen, Editor-in-Chief emeritus, St Louis Jewish Light
From the author:
In the final months of Anna’s life her soul often left her body taking her on a journey back in time to relive pivotal moments that defined her life. Her guides were people she trusted, those she shared her life with that now live in a realm beyond present reality. It was their task to lead Anna through to the next stage.
Her children (Larry, Alice and Susan) were told she had a disease, Alzheimer’s, and struggled with her loss of present memory and altered reality as symptoms of this malady. They feared the disease while she experienced it as a transition – a final rite of passage.
Now, as Susan sleeps, Anna returns to share her journey.
The time is the twentieth century. The place is New York. The Memory Lingers On is one woman’s story of life after death as she communicates it to her daughter Susan. Through a series of visions and ghostly visitations Anna Segal moves back in time to share her lasts memories. A bridge is before her. She must cross the great waters. Fear stands in her way as she oscillates between the past and the present in her yearning to be free.
The Memory Lingers On is a story of transition, seen as a life lived on two planes – the real world, as we experience it, and the next world as it comes to light. One might consider Anna Segal a time traveler living in a constant dream state called Alzheimer’s.
For those who have read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho they will see how each life faces the challenge of a personal legend. We will be guided. There will be omens directing us. And, whether we win or loose, this is our treasure. Like The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, the reader of The Memory Lingers On sees Anna as one who crisscrosses, back and forth, from different moments in the past, present and future. Anna can be anyone of us or anyone we may now know. Are these people we love always in the here and now? And if you say ‘No’ then you acknowledge they are out of our reach on another plane. Last, the reader may find similarities in Anna’s story to the midnight visitation of ghosts visited on Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
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