Book: In The Shadow of Memory

Just started this 2003 book by Floyd Skloot about living with drain bamage. Floyd's brain was attacked by a virus in December 1988, leaving his brain looking like Swiss cheese on an MRI. His cognitive disorder is similar to Alzheimer's or dementia but it occurred literally overnight.

He does things like put dirty dishes in the oven instead of the dishwasher, he forgets things from one second to the next, he can't remember his children's' names.

How he managed to write a book I'm not sure yet.

Neither is he, probably.

The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed.

Some of the language malapropisms he frequently uses, in real life, not in his writing, are interesting.

*blood tower traffic for rush hour traffic
*I'm having a kickback for I'm having a relapse
*sombrero reporters for soprano recorders
*pass me the tracks for pass me the gravy (because gravy reminds him of grooves)
*tooth shellac for tooth plaque
*deviation for meditation

The latter chapters are about his childhood, as he has reconstructed it. He was abused by his parents, his mother was borderline psychotic and a pathological liar. His immune system was compromised by years of physical and emotional abuse, which may explain why his brain was attacked by a virus.

In the last couple of chapters his mother develops Alzheimer's, and becomes a sweet if entirely helpless and forgetful old crone. The son muses on whether he'd trade his old foul tempered mother for the one whose memory has been erased.