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Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante
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My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty-nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me. Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind is a spellbinding novel about the disintegration of a strong woman’s mind and the unhinging of her family. Dr. Jennifer White, recently widowed and a newly retired orthopedic surgeon, is entering the beginning stages of dementia ― where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse. As the story opens, Jennifer’s life-long friend and neighbor, Amanda, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed. Dr. White is the prime suspect in the murder and she herself doesn’t know if she did it or not. Narrated in her voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between this pair ― two proud, forceful women who were at times each other’s most formidable adversaries. The women’s thirty-year friendship deeply entangled their families, and as the narrative unfolds we see that things were not always as they seemed. Jennifer’s deceased husband, James, is clearly not the scion he was thought to be. Her two grown children ― Mark, a lawyer, and Fiona, a professor, who now have power over their mother’s medical and financial decisions respectively ― have agendas of their own. And Magdalena, her brusque live-in caretaker, has a past she hides. As the investigation intensifies, a chilling question persists: is Dr. Jennifer White’s shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it? Told through the voice of a woman with a powerful intellect that is maddeningly slipping away, Turn of Mind is not only a suspenseful psychological thriller that pulses with intensity but also a brilliant portrayal of the fragility of consciousness and memory, and of a mind finally turning on itself. “Turn of Mind is bursting with humanity, in full array. Impossible to put down and yet a book not only to be savored, but returned to. A glorious achievement.” ―Jeffrey Lent
- Sales Rank: #5566256 in Books
- Published on: 2015-08-25
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x .50" w x 5.25" l, .15 pounds
- Running time: 10 Hours
- Binding: MP3 CD
Review
—A New York Times Bestseller
—Winner of the Wellcome Trust Book Prize
—A New York Times and Booklist Editor's Choice
—An NPR, Vogue, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Globe and Mail Summer Reading Pick
—A San Francisco Chronicle 2011 Holiday Gift Guide Selection
—Best Book of the Year:
Newsday
Amazon.com 10 Best Thriller and Mystery Books
Washington Post Notable Fiction
The Guardian Best Thrillers
Kirkus Reviews Top 25 Best in Fiction
Globe and Mail Best Mysteries and Thrillers
Shelf Awareness Top Pick
“To call Turn of Mind a thriller—or a chronicle of illness, or a saga of friendship for that matter—would confine it to a genre it transcends. This is a portrait of an unstable mind, an expansive, expertly wrought imagining of memory’s failures and potential. . . . In LaPlante’s vivid prose, [Dr. White’s] waning mind proves a prism instead of a prison, her memory refracted to rich, sensual effect. There are moments of steely, surgical calm, the language tight and fractured . . . and there are moments of blooming, antic poetry. . . . LaPlante has imagined a lunatic landscape well. The twists and turns of mind this novel charts are haunting and original.”—The New York Times Book Review
"Gripping . . . Skilfull . . . Unique . . . [A] compelling whodunit . . . . LaPlante has created an unforgettable portrait of the process of forgetting."—The Washington Post Book World
"Rare . . . LaPlante's fine novel is both lyrical and shocking." —Boston Globe
"Remarkably poignant . . . An artful, ambitious, and arresting attempt to capture the thoughts and feelings, by turns confused, conspiratorial, canny, and clear, of a person in the throes of mental illness . . . LaPlante reminds us all, passionately, that no matter what the state of our health, reality can be elusive and subjective."—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Expertly paced . . . A stunning act of imagination.”—Chicago Tribune
"Unforgettable . . . It sounds like an almost impossible task: to write a murder mystery from the perspective of a suspect with Alzheimer's. And yet LaPlante pulls it off and with flair. . . . Jennifer is a hard, funny, acerbic woman when she is able to marshal her wandering wits. . . . Fragmented and disorienting . . . [A] distressingly believable portrait of a mind sinking into dementia." —The Guardian (UK)
“This book is to 2011 what Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One was to 2010—the dread-filled, un-putdownable page turner. . . . Skillfully written in the memory-loss first person, the book combines murder mystery with family drama, bringing new meaning to the term ‘psychological thriller.’”—Vanity Fair
"Haunting . . . Blackly humorous . . . Remarkable . . . [Told in] the crisp, super-intelligent, and brutally confused voice of Dr. Jennifer White . . . LaPlante is certain in her footing—the verisimilitude here is unnerving . . . [as] she takes us into a world of gauzy shadows and scattered puzzle pieces."—Newsday
"Daring and confident . . . A tour de force."—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“This poignant debut immerses us in dementia’s complex choreography. . . . Dr. White is . . . by turns brilliant, hallucinatory, and heartbreakingly vulnerable. . . . [A] lyrical mosaic, an indelible portrait of a disappearing mind.”—People (4 stars)
"This dazzlingly adroit debut novel is full of suspense, rueful humor, and scalpel-sharp insights into the intricacies of love and friendship—as well as the resilience of the human spirit." —More
"A brilliant, even audacious conceit . . . Pitch-perfect."—Chicago Sun-Times
"Not only was I mesmerized by LaPlante's ability to put the reader in the circumstance of a slowly evaporating ability to stay in the present, but the ending of the book was also one of the most indelible I have read in years—I was stunned, silent, and shaken."—The Daily Beast
"Provocative . . . Nervy and stylish . . . What lingers in the reader's mind is not so much the resolution of the plot as the resilience of Jennifer's character. . . . Alzheimer's patients reshape those around them in ways that transcend anguish and frustration. As the best parts of Turn of Mind reveal, the disease opens us to the very things that make us human." —AARP magazine
"A heart-wrenching yet thrilling read . . . It is a mystery, thriller, medical story, family drama, and just an all-around good read."—Deseret News
“How does LaPlante pull a story out of [a protagonist] with no memory? In a word: deftly. . . . A clever whodunit. . . . If this portrait is correct, Jennifer is a sad but true reflection of a disease that ebbs and flows unmercifully. One minute she stares in wonder at a commonplace item like a toothbrush, the next she reacts with almost animal cunning, and the next—almost miraculously—she displays the most salient facets of her former self. The novel’s ending alone will show what a long and winding road it is from confused to comatose.” —The Seattle Times
“Moving . . . Unusual . . . Cleverly and well written . . . I was quickly hooked.”—Literary Review (UK)
“[An] accomplished thriller . . . Vivid . . . Turn of Mind is an incisive, humane exploration of how we can rail against our need for close relationships with others, feeling that they undermine our independence, even as we keep going back for more.”—Times Literary Supplement
"A page-turner . . . Creates a startling range and texture of fear. From agonizing, slow-motion-car-crash moments to the ironic frissons of a good horror movie, [LaPlante] hits every bell. . . . The complexity never fades . . . The razor sharp quality of [Jennifer's] thoughts, even at their most fragmented, gives her entire ordeal a "Twilight Zone" feel. Up until the final stages of the disease, she still somehow manages to retain the quality of a lone sane person adrift in a world that definitely isn't." —Los Angeles Times
"Brilliant . . . Turn of Mind is relentless and chilling."—The Globe and Mail
"The basic premise of this debut novel is pure genius . . . Masterfully written and satisfying."—Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“Executed with skill and elegance . . . . LaPlante’s real achievement here is creating a character who—even in the midst of losing her mind—is concrete, complicated, smart, and sympathetic. . . . Painfully sad and utterly true.”—Bookreporter
"Engrossing . . . Exhilarating . . . A page-turning mystery."—San Jose Mercury News
“A powerfully affecting novel.”—Easy Living (UK)
"A unique premise for a murder investigation . . . Compulsively readable . . . The mystery of the mind has surely been solved."—New York Journal of Books
"Turn of Mind is one of my favorite books of the year. I can't wait to see what LaPlante comes up with next." —Karin Slaughter, author of Fallen
“What bumps Turn of Mind up into the exalted Daphne Du Maurier/Ruth Rendell category of ‘literary thriller’ is LaPlante’s fearless and compassionate investigation into the erosion of her main character’s mind. . . . Turn of Mind reads as a series of fragmentary-but-illuminating first-person conversations between Dr. White and various other characters. . . . In the short space of these dialogues, Dr. White’s grip on reality fades in and out, like an iffy radio frequency and time frames collapse into each other with fluid ease. We readers become (nervously) at home in the haunted house of Dr. White’s head . . . [and] LaPlante’s turn on the suspense formula is especially ingenious because, as anxious-but-enthralled readers, we have to agree to be entrapped inside Dr. White’s crumbling mind for the duration. . . . Forgetfulness, it turns out, may be something of a mercy after all.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air
"Heartbreaking . . . Telling the story from the point of view of a woman whose mind is slowly failing could have been gimmicky, but LaPlante completely pulls it off."—Ladies' Home Journal
“Impressive . . . Part mystery novel, part family drama . . . LaPlante has a gift for rhythm, crafting rat-a-tat passages that are their own pleasures. . . . It’s no small feat that LaPlante manages to spin a coherent tale despite her main character’s profound disorientation.”—Entertainment Weekly
"An electrifying book, impossible to put down. Gripping, thought-provoking, humane, funny, tragic, it is masterfully done, a tour de force that can’t be a first novel—and yet it is. I’ll read whatever LaPlante writes next, and the sooner the better.”—Ann Packer
"A uniquely entertaining murder mystery. LaPlante's portrayal of the prime suspect's escalating dementia is gripping, unnerving, and utterly brilliant."—Lisa Genova
“The Stone Angel meets Momento in this literary page-turner. . . . Smart, strong . . . With its timely and compelling storyline, LaPlante’s debut is ambitious . . . Both an impressive technical stunt and a moving portrait of a difficult, undaunted woman.”—Winnipeg Free Press
“Haunting . . . [A] startling portrait of a fiercely intelligent woman struggling mightily to hold on to her sense of self. . . . This masterfully written debut is fascinating on so many levels, from its poignant and inventive depiction of a harrowing illness to its knowing portrayal of the dark complexities of friendsh...
About the Author
Alice LaPlante is an award-winning writer of both fiction and nonfiction. She teaches creative writing at Stanford University, where she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer. She also teaches in the MFA program at San Francisco State University. Her fiction has been widely published in Epoch, Southwestern Review, and other literary journals. LaPlante is the author of five books, including the Los Angeles Times best seller, Method and Madness: The Making of a Story. She lives with her family in Northern California.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Something has happened. You can always tell. You come to and find wreckage: a smashed lamp, a devastated human face that shivers on the verge of being recognizable. Occasionally someone in uniform: a paramedic, a nurse. A hand extended with a pill. Or poised to insert a needle.
This time, I am in a room, sitting on a cold metal folding chair. The room is not familiar, but I am used to that. I look for clues. An office like setting, long and crowded with desks and computers, messy with papers. No windows.
I can barely make out the pale green of the walls, so many posters, clippings, and bulletins tacked up. Fluorescent lighting casting a pall. Men and women talking; to one another, not to me. Some wearing baggy suits, some in jeans. And more uniforms. My guess is that a smile would be inappropriate. Fear might not be.
I can still read, I’m not that far gone, not yet. No books anymore, but newspaper articles. Magazine pieces, if they’re short enough. I have a system. I take a sheet of lined paper. I write down notes, just like in medical school.
When I get confused, I read my notes. I refer back to them. I can take two hours to get through a single Tribune article, half a day to get through The New York Times. Now, as I sit at the table, I pick up a paper someone discarded, a pencil. I write in the margins as I read. These are Band-Aid solutions. The violent flare-ups continue. They have reaped what they sowed and should repent.
Afterward, I look at these notes but am left with nothing but a sense of unease, of uncontrol. A heavy man in blue is hovering, his hand inches away from my upper arm. Ready to grab. Restrain.
Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?
I want to go home. I want to go home. Am I in Philadelphia. There was the house on Walnut Lane. We played kickball in the streets.
No, this is Chicago. Ward Forty-three, Precinct Twenty-one. We have called your son and daughter. You can decide at any time from this moment on to terminate the interview and exercise these rights.
I wish to terminate. Yes.
A large sign is taped to the kitchen wall. The words, written in thick black marker in a tremulous hand, slope off the poster board: My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me.
It is all clear. So who are all these other people in my house? People, strangers, everywhere. A blond woman I don’t recognize in my kitchen drinking tea. A glimpse of movement from the den. Then I turn the corner into the living room and find yet another face. I ask, So who are you? Who are all the others? Do you know her? I point to the kitchen, and they laugh. I am her, they say. I was there, now I’m here. I am the only one in the house other than you. They ask if I want tea. They ask if I want to go for a walk. Am I a baby? I say. I am tired of the questions. You know me, don’t you? Don’t you remember? Magdalena. Your friend.
The notebook is a way of communicating with myself, and with others. Of filling in the blank periods. When all is in a fog, when someone refers to an event or conversation that I can’t recall, I leaf through the pages. Sometimes it comforts me to read what’s there. Sometimes not. It is my Bible of consciousness. It lives on the kitchen table: large and square, with an embossed leather cover and heavy creamy paper. Each entry has a date on it. A nice lady sits me down in front of it.
She writes, January 20, 2009. Jennifer’s notes. She hands the pen to me. She says, Write what happened today. Write about your childhood. Write whatever you remember.
I remember my first wrist arthrodesis. The pressure of scalpel against skin, the slight give when it finally sliced through. The resilience of muscle. My surgical scissors scraping bone. And afterward, peeling off bloody gloves finger by finger.
Black. Everyone is wearing black. They’re walking in twos and threes down the street toward St. Vincent’s, bundled in coats and scarves that cover their heads and lower faces against what is apparently bitter wind.
I am inside my warm house, my face to the frosted window, Magdalena hovering. I can just see the twelve-foot carved wooden doors. They are wide open, and people are entering. A hearse is standing in front, other cars lined up behind it, their lights on.
It’s Amanda, Magdalena tells me. Amanda’s funeral. Who is Amanda? I ask. Magdalena hesitates, then says, Your best friend. Your daughter’s godmother. I try. I fail. I shake my head. Magdalena gets my notebook. She turns back the pages. She points to a newspaper clipping:
Elderly Chicago Woman Found Dead, Mutilated
CHICAGO TRIBUNE—February 23, 2009
CHICAGO, IL—The mutilated body of a seventy-five-year- old Chicago woman was discovered yesterday in a house in the 2100 block of Sheffield Avenue. Amanda O’Toole was found dead in her home after a neighbor noticed she had failed to take in her newspapers for almost a week, according to sources close to the investigation. Four fingers on her right hand had been severed. The exact time of death is unknown, but cause of death is attributed to head trauma, sources say. Nothing was reported missing from her house. No one has been charged, but police briefly took into custody and then released a person of interest in the case.
I try. But I cannot conjure up anything. Magdalena leaves. She comes back with a photograph.
Two women, one taller by at least two inches, with long straight white hair pulled back in a tight chignon. The other one, younger, has shorter wavy gray locks that cluster around chiseled, more feminine features. That one a beauty perhaps, once upon a time.
This is you, Magdalena says, pointing to the younger woman. And this here, this is Amanda. I study the photograph.
The taller woman has a compelling face. Not what you’d call pretty. Nor what you would call nice. Too sharp around the nostrils, lines of perhaps contempt etched into the jowls. The two women stand close together, not touching, but there is an affinity there.
Try to remember, Magdalena urges me. It could be important. Her hand lies heavily on my shoulder. She wants something from me. What? But I am suddenly tired. My hands shake. Perspiration trickles down between my breasts.
I want to go to my room, I say. I swat at Magdalena’s hand. Leave me be.
Amanda? Dead? I cannot believe it. My dear, dear friend. Second mother to my children. My ally in the neighborhood. My sister. If not for Amanda, I would have been alone. I was different. Always apart. The cheese stands alone.
Not that anyone knew. They were fooled by surfaces, so easy to dupe. No one understood weaknesses like Amanda. She saw me, saved me from my secret solitude. And where was I when she needed me? Here. Three doors down. Wallowing in my woes. While she suffered. While some monster brandished a knife, pushed in for the kill.
O the pain! So much pain. I will stop swallowing my pills. I will take my scalpel to my brain and eviscerate her image. And I will beg for exactly that thing I’ve been battling all these long months: sweet oblivion.
The nice lady writes in my notebook. She signs her name: Magdalena. Today, Friday, March 11, was another bad day. You kicked the step and broke your toe. At the emergency room you escaped into the parking lot. An orderly brought you back. You spat on him.
The shame.
This half state. Life in the shadows. As the neurofibrillary tangles proliferate, as the neuritic plaques harden, as synapses cease to fire and my mind rots out, I remain aware. An unanesthetized patient. Every death of every cell pricks me where I am most tender. And people I don’t know patronize me. They hug me. They attempt to hold my hand. They call me prepubescent nicknames: Jen. Jenny. I bitterly accept the fact that I am famous, beloved even, among strangers. A celebrity! A legend in my own mind.
My notebook lately has been full of warnings. Mark very angry today. He hung up on me. Magdalena says do not speak to anyone who calls. Do not answer the door when she’s doing laundry or in the bathroom.
Then, in a different handwriting, Mom, you are not safe with Mark. Give the medical power of attorney to me, Fiona. It is best to have medical and financial powers of attorney in the same hands anyway. Some things are crossed out, no, obliterated, with a thick black pen. By whom?
My notebook again:
Mark called, says my money will not save me. I must listen to him. That there are other actions we must take to protect me. Then: Mom, I sold $50,000 worth of IBM stock for the lawyer’s retainer. She comes highly recommended for cases where mental competency is an issue. They have no evidence, only theories. Dr. Tsien has put you on 150 mg of Seroquel to curb the episodes. I will come again tomorrow, Saturday. Your daughter, Fiona.
I belong to an Alzheimer’s support group. People come and they go. This morning Magdalena says it is an okay day, we can try to attend. The group meets in a Methodist church on Clark, squat and gray with clapboard walls and garish primary-colored stained-glass windows.
We gather in the Fellowship Lounge, a large room with windows that don’t open and speckled linoleum floors bearing the scuff marks of the metal folding chairs. A motley crew, perhaps half a dozen of us, our minds in varying states of undress. Magdalena waits outside the door of the room with the other caregivers. They line up on benches in the dark hallway, knitting and speaking softly among themselves, but attentive, prepared to leap up and take their charges away at the first hint of trouble. Our leader is a young man with a social-worker degree. He has a kind and ineffectual face, and likes to start with introductions and a joke.
My-name-is-I-forgot-and-I-am-an-I-don’t-know-what. He refers to what we do as the Two Circular Steps. Step One is admitting you have a problem. Step Two is forgetting you have the problem.
It gets a laugh every time, from some because they remember the joke from the last meeting, but from most because it’s new to them, no matter how many times they’ve heard it.
Today is a good day for me. I remember it. I would even add a third step: Step Three is remembering that you forget. Step Three is the hardest of all.
Today we discuss attitude. This is what the leader calls it. You’ve all received this extraordinarily distressing diagnosis, he says. You are all intelligent, educated people. You know you are running out of time. What you do with it is up to you. Be positive! Having Alzheimer’s can be like going to a party where you don’t happen to know anyone. Think of it! Every meal can be the best meal of your life! Every movie the most enthralling you’ve ever seen! Have a sense of humor, he says. You are a visitor from another planet, and you are observing the local customs.
But what about the rest of us, for whom the walls are closing in? Whom change has always terrified? At thirteen I stopped eating for a week because my mother bought new sheets for my bed. For us, life is now terribly dangerous. Hazards lie around every corner. So you nod to all the strangers who force themselves upon you. You laugh when others laugh, look serious when they do. When people ask do you remember you nod some more. Or frown at first, then let your face light up in recognition.
All this is necessary for survival. I am a visitor from another planet, and the natives are not friendly.
From the Hardcover edition.
Most helpful customer reviews
181 of 187 people found the following review helpful.
A Mesmerizing Exploration of a Deteriorating Mind
By Nancy Famolari
Dr. Jennifer White is sixty-four-years-old, suffering from Alzheimer's and a person of interest in the death of her best friend, Amanda. Her days are filled with a reality that blurs and fades and sometimes is intensely real. The police suspect Dr. White is involved in Amanda's murder. She's an orthopedic surgeon and four of Amanda's fingers have been removed with surgical precision. But is someone with advanced dementia capable of committing a skillful murder without being detected?
The story is told through Dr. White's eyes. It's eerie to be inside the head of someone whose reality changes from day to day. We meet her children, her caregiver, and through the visions she experiences, her husband, parents and Amanda herself. As the disease progresses, we are drawn more and more into the complex, disturbing world inhabited by Dr. White.
One police officer needs to find the truth. She continues to question Dr. White after all the others have given up, and gradually, she pieces together most of the truth. While it gives closure to the reader and the police officer. It's too late to help Dr. White. Her world is dissolving toward the end.
I enjoyed this book although it was an eerie sensation to be so much in the head of someone with a distorted vision reality. I thought the author did an excellent job describing the deteriorating world of an Alzheimer's patient.
Although the murder mystery kept me turning pages, the investigation by the police officers didn't ring true. Perhaps this was because it was being told through a distorted vision. Still, it was a necessary part of the novel. Without some real life clues to follow the novel would have become too convoluted in the bizarre world of Dr. White's deteriorating brain. Well worth the read.
76 of 78 people found the following review helpful.
AN EXCEPTIONAL STORY OF A WOMAN UNDER ATTACK BY HER OWN MIND
By David Keymer
"Something has happened." Jennifer White is writing in her journal, a record she's keeping ("It is my Bible of consciousness") because she is suffering from dementia, the intermediate stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Jennifer is 64. She has been a distinguished surgeon and she has two grown children, whom now she sometimes recognizes, sometimes doesn't, and with growing frequency confuses with her husband and mother, both long gone. "Termites [are] eating away at [her] emotions. . . . Robbing [her] of [the] chance to say goodbye." But now policemen want to question her. Her best friend, Amanda, has been found dead in her house down the block, and someone, someone with the surgical skill Jennifer used to possess, has amputated and disposed four fingers from Amanda's one hand. The detectives suspect that Jennifer either murdered her friend or was involved in the murder, but how can they penetrate the deep fog that now surrounds Jennifer's mind. And why would she have done such a horrific thing? Out of this situation, first time novelist LaPlante could have fashioned a potboiler, emphasizing the hyperbolic, but instead, and admirably, she has resisted the impulse to sensationalize and instead written a deeply moving account of an intelligent woman's descent into oblivion. It is also a mystery -and a good one--but most of all, it is a study of character under attack, and an excellent one.
123 of 132 people found the following review helpful.
Not a Book for "Light Reading"
By Rabid Reader
This book is depressing. Don't misunderstand - it's a fairly well written book, but the subject matter is dark. Very dark. This is a painful book dealing with a terrifying subject, and is not a light-hearted "who-dun-it".
In this book, a former surgeon is suspected of killing her on again-off again friend. However, since she is an Alzheimer's patient with no recollection of who her family and friends actually are, she can provide little help to the police as they search for clues. The book is narrated from the main character's (the Alzheimer's patient's) point of view, and therefore is disturbing in its stark portrayal of the confusion, pain and loss of dignity that surrounds the progression of this horribly debilitating disease. I found it heart-rending.
All of that said, while I respected the author's insight into the family disruption and emotional pain that accompanies dementia, I found the ending to be anti-climatic and not worthy of the skill she demonstrates throughout the rest of the book. Others may not agree.
I recommend the book, but do so with a caveat: read it as more than a murder mystery if you want your money's worth. The true power of this book lies not in the plot, but in the gripping portrayal of an illness that affects more than 27 million people world wide.
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