Never Coming Back by Alison McGhee

NEVER COMING BACK by Alison McGhee is a beautifully written story that deserves reflection and quiet – a perfect Boxing Day read by the fire. It’s a story about Clara Winter and her mother, Tamar, who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.  For Clara, a talented young woman who loves music and writing, moving back to rural New York State and the Adirondack Mountains brings not only the need to cope with the present situation, but confrontation with questions concerning the past and glimmers of a possible future. McGhee is an extremely talented writer – I chose this title in part because of its evocative setting, but also because I remember reading and being moved by McGhee’s Snap (a middle grade novel) over a decade ago.

In NEVER COMING BACK McGhee describes dementia as: “What happens when someone close to you starts to disappear is that they aren’t always there. They are with you and then they aren’t.  This happens while their hearts still beat, while their lungs still breathe, while they look directly at you.  They talk and laugh and sing and then they don’t. They are here and they are gone, are and were, simultaneously.” NEVER COMING BACK is an emotional, yet gentle, contemplation on mothers and daughters and on the challenges we face in life.