Alison Acheson’s DANCE ME TO THE END: TEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS WITH ALS is now available from Brindle & Glass!
“This lyrical debut . . . captures life as a series of snapshots, as a couple grows simultaneously closer together and further apart in the wake of a sudden life change . . . A mesmerizing memoir by a talented writer on coming to terms with the unexpected.” — Library Journal
“An achingly painful memoir . . . told with honesty and grace.” —Toronto Star
Marty, age 57, was given a preliminary diagnosis of ALS by his family doctor. Seven weeks later, the diagnosis was confirmed by a neurologist. Ten months and ten days later, Marty passed away.
From day one, Alison, Marty’s spouse of over twenty-five years, kept a journal as a way to navigate the overwhelming state of her mind and soul. Soon the rawness of her words harmonized to tell the story of Marty’s diagnosis, illness, and decline. Her journal became a chronicle of caregiving as well as an emotional exploration of the tensions between the intuitive and the pragmatic, the logical and illogical, and the all-consuming demands of being both spouse and nurse. Divided into short pieces, some of which reads as free verse, Alison’s words are at times profoundly intense and painfully private.
DANCE ME TO THE END is an evocative memoir about the emotional impact of witnessing a loved one suffer from a neurological, degenerative, and terminal disease. This is a detailed account of grief, shock and pain coexisting with the levity, laughter and love shared with her husband and sons in those final months of Marty’s life. A profoundly honest and intensely personal story of a woman who cares for her husband after the devastating terminal diagnosis of ALS.
ALISON ACHESON is the author of ten books, including the short story collection Learning to Live Indoors, which was praised by the Globe & Mail for its “arresting and crystalline clarity”. She teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia, and lives in Vancouver, BC.
Alison is represented by Transatlantic agent Amy Tompkins.