Words do not fail her

Smart, funny, playful novel tackling the 21st century’s most pervasive fear dementia is a delight to read.

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The publisher's blurb compares this Aussie novel to The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out the Window. Wrong: Bruce Nash's story is good. In fact, good-quadruple-plus.

Its narrative faces up to one of our most pervasive 21st-century fears. It acknowledges, records and somehow de-demonises that fear.

Rose, the protagonist, may not comprehend the connection between an empty wheelchair by a high window and the nightgowned figure sprawled in the rest-home carpark below, or the significance of "the older fellow" whose image her children always leave the photo album open at when they visit, but we do. Rose can't because she's being inexorably eroded by dementia.