I feel honored to have received an early copy of Morningside Heights. I devoured every sentence and dog eared more pages than I can count. Henkin explores Professor Spence Robin’s slow decline from Alzheimer’s disease and the devastating effects the disease has on his devoted wife, Pru, and two children. The masterfully crafted story is complex, heart-wrenching and completely realistic. Because my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago at the age of 67, so much about this story touched me and even moved me to tears. 

The following passages hit particularly close to home:

“because when he woke up tomorrow everything would be gone, vanished like the image on a shaken Etch A Sketch.”

“Though really what she hated was the fact itself, the light in Spence’s face diminishing with the day’s sunlight. A bad day from six months ago was a good day now, and how he behaved in the evening would, in another six months, be how he would act in the light of day.”

Though the story centers on Spence’s diagnosis, this is really Pru’s story. She stands steadfastly by Spence’s side as he endures embarrassing tests, steady decline in functioning and humiliating loss of dignity. She adores her husband, but also finds that she begins to lose her sense of self as his disease progresses. When her best friend introduces her to a new man, Pru struggles with how to find connection without being disloyal to her beloved husband. She wants to do everything she can to support and care for Spence, but as he becomes more like a child, she must mourn the loss of their marital relationship. 

“She wondered whether this is what she would remember, these last years of diminishment. She persuaded herself that when he was gone the end would fade and the man she’d first known would remain, accompanying her through the lonely days, through the years of solitude that lay ahead of her.”

Though I know how the story would inevitably end for Spence, I found the ending brimming with love and hope. This would make a wonderful book club read, with no shortage of fascinating points of discussion about marriage, family, love and loyalty.