In a Tangled Wood: An Alzheimer's Journey

by Joyce Dyer

Joyce Dyer's memoir offers readers a rare and authentic glimpse into the world and culture of an Alzheimer's special care unit. Her mother is the central focus, but we come to know an entire group of people, each in various stages of Alzheimer's and each affected in a different way by its ravages. Through the inhabitants of the unit, and through the staff that cares for them, we learn about Alzheimer's disease, and about the boundlessness of the human spirit.

Dyer offers no cure for Alzheimer's, but she does discover wonder and hope. This is a powerful book, filled with pain and sadness, but one that demonstrates the irony that this devastating disease can offer occasion for joy and laughter as well.

Genres: Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Joyce Dyer is director of the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature at Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, and John S. Kenyon Professor of English. Dyer is the author of three books, The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings, In a Tangled Wood: An Alzheimer’s Journey, and Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town, and the editor of Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers. She has published essays in magazines such as North American Review, cream city review, and High Plains Literary Review. Dyer has won numerous awards for her writing, including the 1998 Appalachian Book of the Year Award and the 2009 David B. Saunders Award in Creative Nonfiction.

Reviews

[Karen Elizabeth]

POPSUGAR 2021 prompt #11: A book about forgetting. In a Tangled Wood was written by Joyce Dyer, one of my favorite college professors. It's an account of her mother's Alzheimer's disease and the specialized care facility she resided in. Dyer went into heartbreaking detail and portrayed a mother and daughter's evolving relationship. I would have liked some flashbacks to get to know her mother before the disease took hold.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alzheimer’s Disease is neither poetic nor beautiful, but Joyce Dyer has written a book about it that is both of those things. In a Tangled Wood takes us into an Alzheimer’s care unit where Dyer visits her mother and gets to know all of the residents like family. Her prose, in the form of vignettes from her visits tells us just enough to see not only the horror of the disease but those magical moments of humor, insight and love. As a writer, I’m jealous of Dyer’s talent. As an Alzheimer’s widow, I am grateful for this heart-warming book.

[Amelia Plush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful book for anyone that has a loved one or works with people with Alzheimer's. truly touching...