Head Case: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms

by Alexis Orgera

North Carolina writer and publisher Alexis Orgera's new memoir, HEAD MY FATHER, ALZHEIMER'S & OTHER BRAINSTORMS, is a lyric experiment written in the immediacy of grief during the end stages of her father's early Alzheimer's diagnosis at age 52--a disease that is a national epidemic. The book chronicles the visceral and painful experience of a daughter watching her beloved, formerly high functioning father disappear, and explores the stories that unfurl, daily, all around us. After moving from Los Angeles to Florida to be near her parents as they navigated her father's deteriorating condition, Orgera spent the days with her father painting, listening to music, taking walks, reading poems, sitting on the porch and later in the courtyard of his memory facility and furiously recording the moments while examining her own memories. To begin to understand the emotional impact of a human unraveling by memory loss, Orgera tells the story through a kaleidoscopic lens of mythology and religion, visual art, migraines, ghosts, poetry, and science. Both a deep lament for a well-loved man and an exploration of what it means to live a good life, HEAD CASE invites you to better understand yourself more deeply as well as the human condition. Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. Memoir.

194 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[Diane Worthey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Head Case from start to finish and had a hard time putting it down. Through poetry, artwork, and lyrical prose, Alexis Orgera opens herself up transparently and honestly to tell us her journey through her father's Alzheimer's diagnosis and his ultimate death. I learned a lot about Alzheimer's by reading about Alexis' journey through her father's illness. She doesn't mince words. She tells things as they actually happened, holding nothing back in her descriptions of what it is like to watch a loved one with Alzheimer's fade away. And, gracefully, she poses the idea that perhaps we aren't always supposed to know the answers in life as to why things happen the way they do. Our daily challenge is to be ok with questions we can't answer. I cried while reading this book. I laughed, too. And then I dreamt about this book after finishing it. I'm still contemplating the human condition after reading it. Thank you, Alexis, for teaching us that's it's ok to have questions when tragedy comes into our lives. And thank you for opening yourself up to your core to share your story and your father's story with us.

[Rachel Rosen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stayed up late to finish this book. It was raw, true, emotional and powerful. It was such an intimate look into the relationship between a father and daughter and the concepts and ideas around memory, forgetting and what lives on.