I try now not to overrate the reliability of my own memories. I had learned of the fallibility of memory many years ago through my reading, and have always considered that fascinating, and disturbing. He illustrates this with examples of memories of his that turned out to be wrong, or that he’s now a lot less sure of than he used to be. I like the fact that in this essay Franzen reflects on memory itself, and how memory in general-not just for Alzheimer’s patients-is far more fallible than most people think. There still seemed to be an awareness and a will that we wouldn’t attribute to an infant. Even at the point of death, it was as if he were exercising some control over the timing of it, influenced by there being people around him (like he was embarrassed to show weakness and die in front of them and wanted his privacy) and by what was said to him (for instance that it was OK to let go and die, that he should just do what was best for him). And it wasn’t, in Franzen’s view, just something random where his father had good days and bad days, but seemed to happen when there was some reason his father most wanted to do better or most wanted to communicate something.

He describes his father’s efforts to cover up his diminishing abilities, and the effect those final years had on his mother.įranzen is struck by the fact that when his father was really far gone-at the level of a one year old at best-he could still pull it together once in a while, albeit in a minimal and very temporary way. My Father’s Brain is a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece on Franzen’s father’s deterioration and death from Alzheimer’s disease. How to Be Alone consists of fourteen essays. They are somewhat similar writers (same generation, critically highly regarded, mostly think of themselves as novelists but also write intelligent nonfiction social commentary essays like those in this book), and from what I understand were friends and mutual admirers before Wallace’s suicide. I suspect I was a little more interested in or a little bit more receptive to How to Be Alone because of the connections between Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. I feel a kind of connection with him that I rarely feel with authors. I have in recent years become quite interested in the writer David Foster Wallace.

How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen