Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer’s by Meryl Comer

Book Review: Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer’s (HarperOne, 2014) by Meryl Comer

Slow Dancing with a Stranger was published earlier this month, and all proceeds will be donated to Alzheimer’s research.  In this memoir, Meryl Comer writes about taking care of her husband, Dr. Harvey Gralnick, who developed early-onset Alzheimer’s and has been living with the disease for the last nineteen years.  My dad has been living with Alzheimer’s for ten and a half years, so I was very surprised by how long it took for Comer’s husband to initially be diagnosed and receive treatment after he started showing signs of Alzheimer’s.  It took at least 4 years.  This was due, in part, to denial and pride — her husband was a doctor and researcher who worked for the National Institutes of Health.  Alzheimer’s was also not really part of the…