Our Library spoke to author Vivienne Ulman about her poignant memoir, Alzheimer’s: a love story. Don’t miss the chance to meet Vivienne at Rosebud Library on Friday 28 May.
Along with presenting a beautifully observed account of your mother’s gradual decline, Alzheimer’s: a love story meditates on your parents’ enduring love and your father’s devotion to your mother. This painful journey is also peppered with your family history, how your father founded the Gloweave men’s shirt company, and his connections to the Australian Labor Party. Did you always know that you wanted to share this story with a wider audience or did the decision to write a memoir come later?
Many years ago I had a terrible accident involving a chainsaw and my left index finger. Even as I sat on a gurney in the emergency ward, shaking with shock, I took mental note of everything around me for later use. In the same way, at the back of my mind, in that cold-blooded section that probably all writers have, I knew I’d write about my mother’s Alzheimer’s and its effect on our family. Still, it took my youngest daughter suggesting it as a topic for a nonfiction book for me to begin to think about it seriously.
Meet author Vivienne Ulman at Rosebud Library on Friday 28 May at 10am. Free, but bookings essential: 5950 1230
Because I have been a journal-keeper for many years now, I already had a lot of material. When my mother began showing the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s, I recorded everything, though I had no idea what I was documenting. I wrote about her terror and despair and my own horror at what that must have felt like to her. In my journal I also wrote letters to the mother I felt I’d lost, the mother in my head, letters I knew she’d never read, in which I told her how I felt, how I missed her and how I loved her.
Once I decided to write the memoir, I began to scour my journals for anything that might be relevant and then I transcribed it all onto the computer. At that point I had no idea what I would do with this word soup.
The book itself began to come to me in the same way my fictional stories do – with an image that I wanted to explore and understand. In this case it was the image of my mother eating with her hands that haunted me and made me ask, Who is this woman? How did she get here and what will happen to her?
Almost immediately I knew I wanted to include my parents’ history, partly because it’s interesting in its own right, partly so the reader would see my mother’s illness in the context of her life, and partly to make reading the book a more complex experience, with both light and dark notes.
The historical section required a lot of research. I interviewed my father and his sisters; I studied immigration records and the history of the ALP. I had to understand the politics of the time, the geography and even elements of textile manufacture. Then I had to decide what would add to the story and what would bog it down. I was sad to sacrifice some interesting material in the best interests of the book.
Alzheimer’s: a love story also utilises a range of writing styles that include journal entries, letters, emails and narrative prose. Why did you choose to chronicle your experience this way?
I knew from the start that I wanted to include the letters I was writing to my mother. In fact an early title I considered for the book was Letters to a Lost Mother. When I’d assembled all my raw material I felt it would enrich the story if the reader could watch it unfold – share the craziness of my dreams, experience my guilt and anger, eavesdrop on my journal and my plaintive emails – so they could better understand what the experience felt like to me. I thought these inclusions would add to the immediacy – at times perhaps even giving the reader a shock.
How has your father responded to the book?
I was extremely nervous about how my father would respond. While I was writing, I tried not to think about this, telling myself that if the book were ever published the process would take so long my father might be too old to read it.
Scribe Publications, RRP $32.95 (paperback). ISBN: 9781921640001
It was important to me that the book be as honest as possible so I never showed Dad any of the sections that dealt with the current situation, though I interviewed him extensively for the history sections and continually revised those under his eagle eye.
As it happened, the book was accepted for publication even before it was finished and once it was in production I began warning my father that he might not like it, but that other people would. I was sure he’d feel I’d exposed my mother at her most vulnerable.
He began to nag me to show it to him. Finally, after I’d picked up my author copies, I left one on his bed one evening when I was at his place for dinner. I told him about it as he was kissing me goodbye.
The next morning he rang me. He’d read until the early hours of the morning and loved the book. He’s read it twice now and he thinks I’m wise and a wonderful writer. Some of the descriptions make him cry but I feel he even likes those because they bring my mother back to him, and even at her lowest point he cherished her and enjoyed her company. Also, he’s a man of great integrity so he completely understands that for me there would be no point in writing a less than honest account. Overall his impression was that I’m unduly harsh on myself and too lenient on him.
In your book you have thanked Varuna Writers’ House in New South Wales where you did a writing residency. How important was this residency for the development of Alzheimer’s: a love story?
My residency was pivotal in developing the book. The opportunity to immerse myself in my writing, with no other responsibilities, in the company of other writers, was very enriching.
Two things in particular moved the process of the book along. Firstly I walked late every afternoon with the Tasmanian novelist, Heather Rose, who was writing The River Wife at the time. As we walked she asked me questions about my background that probably only a novelist would. Things I’d taken for granted as part of the scenery of my life sharpened into focus.
The second thing was meeting Ann Moyal, a writer of about my mother’s age who was working on a follow-up to her excellent memoir, Breakfast with Beaverbrook: Memoirs of an Independent Woman. I told Ann about my mother’s illness and my father’s devotion to her. Ann thought this would make a fascinating story and encouraged me to write it. I ran straight up to my study and wrote the whole of the first chapter in longhand in my journal.
I had a lot of work to do after that, but somehow, once I had the first chapter I knew more or less where the book was headed.
How would you describe your writing practice?
I write very slowly, though occasionally I do get the gift of a chapter or a story that comes in a rush while I try to stay out of its way.
I write longhand with an Artline fine tip pen that seems to move along the page at just the right speed for my thoughts, in whichever exercise book I am using for a journal at the time. When I’m working on fiction I usually write those bits at the back of the book and my normal everyday musings in the front. Sometimes it’s a race to see which section is longer – the real or the not real. I have tried writing in expensive notebooks that well-meaning friends have given me but I always return to the kind of book that fits in a handbag and that I can manage easily on my knees in bed.
Afterwards I transcribe everything onto the computer and begin the revision process: revise, rework, print out, revise, print out, revise… I also have two wonderful workshop groups who give me feedback. Apart from them and one of my daughters who is my first reader, I don’t show my writing to anyone, no matter how nicely they ask. I learned that lesson early.
Where do you usually work?
I do my most creative writing first thing in the morning in bed, even before my first cup of tea, or later in the day in coffee shops. I have a study in my house in Tasmania where I work on my laptop overlooked by a picture of Virginia Woolf and overlooking a paddock where sheep and goats graze; in Melbourne I’m based at one end of the dining table and I also like working at the State Library.
When my mother was in a nursing home I often sat on her bed with my laptop on her trolley or my journal on my lap while she napped. Writing for me is a place – a destination in itself – where I can go no matter what else is going on around me. People often ask me if writing Alzheimer’s: a Love Story was therapeutic for me, and the answer is that the process itself was, I think. Having that place in my head to go where I was truly myself, engaged in the work that most sustains me, really did keep me sane.
Which writers have inspired you?
In some way every writer I’ve ever read has inspired me, beginning with Enid Blyton. Writers that leap into my head right now are Michael Chabon, Juno Diaz and Joan Didion; Anne Michaels for the poetry of her language. I read a lot of poetry while I’m working. I love short stories and especially the work of Alice Monro.
What are you currently working on?
I have two novels on my hard drive, both in first draft form, one young adult (the one that won me my Varuna residency) and an adult one. Before I move onto anything new I want to see what I can make of those.
I have begun a complete rewrite of the adult novel, changing it from third to first person to see if I can learn more about my protagonist in that way, even if I change it back again afterwards! There’s an idea for another nonfiction book percolating in my brain too but that doesn’t count as a project yet.
Find out more about Vivienne Ulman at:
http://www.vivienneulman.com
Plus, win a signed copy of Alzheimer’s: a love story!:
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Join us for The Big Read at Hastings Library – an amazing range of fun activities and events to celebrate the National Year of Reading 2012!
purchase and be signed by Andy Griffiths, courtesy of Farrell’s Bookshop. Free, but bookings essential: 5950 1710.
