About the Book
With compassion, subtlety, and conviction, Lynn Casteel Harper examines the cultural perception of Alzheimer's disease and dementia against her own experience with the disease as a nursing home chaplain and within her own family, in the vein of Esme Weijun Wang's The Collected Schizophrenias
One of the key, central arguments that Harper makes is that while the common perception is that people with dementia and Alzheimer's vanish from within themselves, we should instead act and care for them from the standpoint that they are very much there
Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., but as Casteel Harper notes, "nuanced thinking about dementia is largely absent--perhaps even nonexistent--in public discourse." Through On Vanishing, she confronts misconceptions and stigmas about the disease, and reveals the richly complex personhood of those living with it - not at all the "erased" people we imagine (and fear) them to be
On Vanishing is not just about those with dementia and Alzheimer's, however; it is also a fascinating social critique of our cultural reaction to the disease, the language we use to describe it, and what those deep-seated fears teach us about ourselves. For fans of literary nonfiction like Being Mortal, On Immunity, and The Empathy Exams, On Vanishing is also essential reading for those diagnosed with or affected by Alzheimer's disease
Lynn Casteel Harper is an award-winning writer and an ordained Baptist minister at The Riverside Church in New York. After publishing the essay that eventually became this book in Catapult magazine ("On Vanishing"), she began receiving emails from others with similar experiences; since then she has given workshops and spoken to groups about dementia and spirituality. Bookseller Praise for On Vanishing
On Vanishing is a great companion book to Being Mortal. A great discussion of aging, dementia, and Alzheimer's, Lynn Casteel Harper leans heavily on her spiritual faith as she takes the reader through what it means to sink into dementia and how we can better treat our elderly. --Mary O'Malley, Anderson's Bookshop (La Grange, IL)
Lynn Casteel Harper approaches one of the most upsetting eventualities that most people can imagine, dementia, with courage and compassion. Drawing on her background as a writer and chaplain, she considers the condition, and the stigma that often attaches to it, from a variety of perspectives. Readers will be well served to have such a steady hand to guide them into a subject that can cause much discomfort. --Keith Mosman, Powell's Books (Portland, OR)
About the Author :
Lynn Casteel Harper is a minister, chaplain, and essayist. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, North American Review, and Catapult magazine. She is a Barbara Deming Fund grant recipient and the winner of the 2017 Orison Anthology Prize in Nonfiction. She lives in New York City and is currently the minister of older adults at The Riverside Church.
Review :
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A searching, poetic inquiry into dementia. . . . [Harper] writes without fear or aversion but with a robust, restless curiosity, a keenness to reframe our understanding of dementia with sensitivity and accuracy. . . . In her beautifully unconventional book, Harper examines the porousness of the borders, the power of imagination and language to grant better futures to our loved ones and ourselves. --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
Dementia is a catch-all term for different diseases that affect more than 50 million people around the world as they age, leading to memory loss, struggles with language, and a decline in motor skills. Baptist minister Lynn Casteel Harper has seen dementia's impact as she's worked as a chaplain in nursing homes, and in this book, she weaves those experiences with broader research about aging, healthcare, and death to explore how we can bestow more dignity on those who are 'vanishing.' --Bitch
[A] calm, clear-eyed discussion of new ways to see dementia and its impact on the individual. --Gemma Tarlach, Discover
"Harper writes beautifully . . . On Vanishing helps us understand what's at stake in healthcare systems that risk prioritizing data collection and cure over medicine as unfolding story . . . Harper shows us how 'vanishing is still life, ' filled with sometimes startling surprises worth telling, hearing, and experiencing together. --Robert Mundle, The Intima
Lynn Casteel Harper's contemplative new work of nonfiction, On Vanishing, [is] a welcome friend . . . Harper asks the reader to reconsider much of the stigma--and terminology--that we place on people diagnosed with dementia . . . [A] meditation, and a lamentation. --Joe Pagetta, America: The Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture
The best nonfiction opens the mind in ways we didn't know it needed to be opened. Lynn Casteel Harper does that and more in On Vanishing, a significant contribution to writing on neurodiversity and aging, and a profound and useful corrective to the Western way of thinking about the trajectory of human life. I was afraid of what On Vanishing might reveal about my family's future, or mine, or how it might remind me of the suffering of my grandmother. But once I began this important book, I could not put it down or resist quoting it to friends and family. Harper is so wise, compassionate, and hopeful, as are the not-vanished people whose powerful stories she has gathered here. --Belle Boggs, author of The Art of Waiting
On Vanishing is imbued with rich humanity, laden with good, orderly directions on the mysteries of age and desolation, and freighted with sentences so beautiful and sad, they catch the breath away. Lynn Casteel Harper's generous text suggests that dementia, apart from the litany of loss it is, might also be, for caregiver and afflicted alike, a chance at love, a way to grow in grace. --Thomas Lynch, author of The Depositions
Elegantly balancing the intimate and the investigative, Lynn Casteel Harper explores the much-feared disease of dementia, opening a compassionate window into territory that is too-often simplified and reduced. As an antidote to avoidance and marginalization, this compelling book also takes on broader questions about the relationship between aging and transformation; On Vanishing will spark necessarily nuanced conversations within institutions as well as across generations. --Elizabeth Rosner, author of Survivor Café
Not many books have so swiftly dismantled my default mode of thinking as Harper's On Vanishing . . . Though she writes from sociological and theological perspectives with manifesto-like urgency, On Vanishing has the emotional complexity and richness of language of any great work of literary nonfiction. Like the Romantic poets and writers she references throughout, Harper masterfully translates complex abstractions into crystalline distillations . . . An excellent book for anyone, regardless of age or creed, who wants to seriously examine what it means to be mortal. --Sophie Lefens, Christian Century
A marvelous tapestry. On Vanishing is poignant in its personal history, profound in its understanding, and prophetic in its analysis of the ways social norms, values, and systems shape the lives of people with dementia and their loved ones. --Bill Gaventa, author of Disability and Spirituality: Recovering Wholeness
On Vanishing is at once intellectual and soulful, vulnerable and brave. With clear eyes and a steady heart, Harper plumbs the complexities of vanishing--the ways the elderly disappear from society and from this world. Grounded in deep compassion and unwillingness to write off those we so easily forget, Harper's book elaborates a beautifully meditative and often radically progressive inquiry into the experience of mental decline and, ultimately, of being a person who will die. --Marin Sardy, author of The Edge of Every Day: Sketches of Schizophrenia
