I am happy to report that Book Life selected Still Phyllis as an Editor’s Pick, saying:

“Incisive, moving, and stripped of sentimentality…scrupulous prose… Scenes of brother and sister still managing to understand each other despite the fraying of Phyllis’s capacity for language have rich power… That commitment to rigorous thinking and writing about life as it’s actually lived powers this first-rate memoir, an act of memory, empathy, and love. … Finely wrought, deeply human memoir of a sister’s neurodegenerative disorder.”―Book Life

All royalties from sales of Still Phyllis have been assigned to the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation

My sister Phyllis was a vital, single woman, a photographer and writer, who was enjoying life in the city when she was suddenly stricken by Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a disease rarer than a lightning strike that spreads, incredibly, via a non-living molecule called a prion. Terrified to realize she couldn’t perform her duties at work, Phyllis very soon couldn’t even find her way to her desk or to her apartment from the corner store. Informed of her diagnosis with this dementing and always fatal illness, I, her estranged brother, her only living relative, brought her home (against the advice of her doctors) to care for her with my wife.

This memoir tells the profoundly affecting family drama that ensued. It is a story of reconciliation and of how, paradoxically, closeness can deepen when words are lost—a truth that I hope will inspire others with a friend or family member with dementia.

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Books-A-Million

All royalties from sales of Still Phyllis have been assigned to the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation