All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia. With Refreshments

by Alex Witchel

Overview

“Haunting, unflinching and at times unexpectedly hilarious…A powerful affirmation of family bonds.” –The New York Times Book Review

A daughter’s longing love letter to a mother who has slipped beyond reach.

Just past seventy, Alex Witchel’s smart, adoring, ultracapable mother began to exhibit undeniable signs of dementia. Her smart, adoring, ultracapable daughter reacted as she’d been raised: If something was broken, they would fix it. But as medical reality undid that hope, and her mother continued the torturous process of disappearing in plain sight, Witchel retreated to the kitchen, trying to reclaim her mother at the stove by cooking the comforting foods of her childhood: “Is there any contract tighter than a family recipe?” 

Reproducing the perfect meat loaf was no panacea, but it helped Witchel come to terms with her predicament, the growing phenomenon of “ambiguous loss” — loss of a beloved one who lives on. Gradually she developed a deeper appreciation for all the ways the parent she was losing lived on in her, starting with the daily commandment “Tell me everything that happened today” that started a future reporter and writer on her way. And she was inspired to turn her experience into this frank, bittersweet, and surprisingly funny account that offers true balm for an increasingly familiar form of heartbreak.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594631856
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alex Witchel is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and originated the popular “Feed Me” column for the Dining section. The author of three previous books, she has also written for New York, Vogue, Elle, and Ladies’ Home Journal, among other publications. She lives in New York with her husband, Frank Rich.

What People are Saying About This

Jerome Groopman

Alex Witchel takes us on an extraordinary journey of the mind and heart as a vibrant parent fades into dementia. She shows us that despite profound loss, we can nourish ourselves with memories that sustain love and give comfort. This book of sharp honesty and deep insight illuminates a time in life when so many of us seek understanding.--Jerome Groopman, author of How Doctors Think and The Anatomy of Hope

Gabrielle Hamilton

I cannot get over how good Alex Witchel's writing is. I wish I could park my desk next to hers and learn how to write sentences even half as efficient and muscular and poignant. No one is smarter, funnier, or more graceful. And there's no one whose kitchen I'd rather be invited into --Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones and Butter

Fran Lebowitz

Alex Witchel is a heroic and funny war correspondent who explains, once and for all, why it's called the nuclear family.--Fran Lebowitz

Ina Garten

This is a story of love and loss told as only Alex Witchel can tell it — with the extraordinary warmth and humor she brings to all of her work. I loved reading it! --Ina Garten

From the Publisher

“Haunting, unflinching and at times unexpectedly hilarious… Witchel offers up a fiercely honest account of how her adored mother slowly began 'disappearing in plain sight'… A book that may make you cry (I did), but through some mysterious alchemy it will also leave you with many positive feelings. It will make you smile and even laugh out loud… A powerful affirmation of family bonds, of the soul-sustaining love—and special dishes shared in beloved company—that persist from generation to generation.” –The New York Times Book Review

"In this warm memoir, Witchel recounts her mother’s mental decline and the solace she derived from preparing family recipes. I related to the author’s desire to hold fast to her mother. My mom embodies so much: family, traditions, home. I worry about how I’ll cope when she passes away someday. This book was a comfort, reminding me that nothing can ever rob me of her love." –Real Simple

"[Witchel's] recipes are simple family classics. With their invocations of old-time staples like Del Monte tomato sauce and Lawry’s seasoned salt, they’re humble reminders of the many small acts of care that hold a family together. On the page, they stand as incantations." –The Daily Beast

“Witchel writes beautifully from the heart, but with a journalist's clarity… [She] reminds readers that family relationships are precious and time is fleeting.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“As Ms. Witchel wisecracks, ‘In our house, it was always the old days.’ All Gone… pay[s] homage to those days. As do the clever comebacks Ms. Witchel scatters throughout… Still, she gives the best lines to her mother, [who,] even as she free falls… delivers good dialogue.” –Rachel Shteir, The New York Times

“Bittersweet, with levity.” –Good Housekeeping

“Moving.” –People

"A short, lovely memoir, moving in its description of grief and loss, the painfully slow loss, of a beloved parent, never self-indulgent and with enough bright spots to balance the blackness… And there is a moment at the end… that brought me to a full-on weep." –Michael Ruhlman

“Food… comes from a different quadrant of [Witchel’s] universe, a space where she can hold a sort of mental conversation with a beloved parent no longer able to converse. And what a parent! …My mother, like Alex’s, cooked the day’s meals not for pleasure or adventure but as an unromantic responsibility that maintained stable, loving order in our small bit of the cosmos. I read “All Gone” marveling that I could ever have looked down on, rather than up to, such an achievement. It’s an honor to meet Barbara Witchel as she was before her mind was ravaged, and celebrate the kind of cooking she stands for.” –Anne Mendelson, ZesterDaily.com

“A moving tribute… that reminds those whose child–parent relationship has flipped that they are not alone.” –SheKnows.com

“Funny and poignant… a complex mother-daughter love story.” –Maclean’s

“A testament to love, tenacity and the power of home cooking” –MORE Magazine

"In this recipie-dotted memoir, Alex Witchel finds solace among the saucepans as her beloved mother slips away... [Includes] witty culinary asides and nuggets of maternal wisdom." –Whole Living

"Warm and always humane, Witchel's narrative is a poignant, candid reminder of the new normal that now defines so many adult child-aging parent relationships." –Kirkus

“I cannot get over how good Alex Witchel’s writing is. I wish I could park my desk next to hers and learn how to write sentences even half as efficient and muscular and poignant. No one is smarter, funnier, or more graceful. And there’s no one whose kitchen I’d rather be invited into.” –Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones and Butter

“Alex Witchel takes us on an extraordinary journey of the mind and heart as a vibrant parent fades into dementia. She shows us that despite profound loss, we can nourish ourselves with memories that sustain love and give comfort. This book of sharp honesty and deep insight illuminates a time in life when so many of us seek understanding.” –Jerome Groopman, author of How Doctors Think and The Anatomy of Hope

"Alex Witchel is a heroic and funny war correspondent who explains, once and for all, why it's called the nuclear family." –Fran Lebowitz

“This is a story of love and loss told as only Alex Witchel can tell it—with the extraordinary warmth and humor she brings to all of her work. I loved reading it!” –Ina Garten

Editorial Reviews

Haunting, unflinching and at times unexpectedly hilarious… Witchel offers up a fiercely honest account of how her adored mother slowly began 'disappearing in plain sight'… A book that may make you cry (I did), but through some mysterious alchemy it will also leave you with many positive feelings. It will make you smile and even laugh out loud… A powerful affirmation of family bonds, of the soul-sustaining love—and special dishes shared in beloved company—that persist from generation to generation.” –The New York Times Book Review

"In this warm memoir, Witchel recounts her mother’s mental decline and the solace she derived from preparing family recipes. I related to the author’s desire to hold fast to her mother. My mom embodies so much: family, traditions, home. I worry about how I’ll cope when she passes away someday. This book was a comfort, reminding me that nothing can ever rob me of her love." –Real Simple

"[Witchel's] recipes are simple family classics. With their invocations of old-time staples like Del Monte tomato sauce and Lawry’s seasoned salt, they’re humble reminders of the many small acts of care that hold a family together. On the page, they stand as incantations." –The Daily Beast

“Witchel writes beautifully from the heart, but with a journalist's clarity… [She] reminds readers that family relationships are precious and time is fleeting.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“As Ms. Witchel wisecracks, ‘In our house, it was always the old days.’ All Gone… pay[s] homage to those days. As do the clever comebacks Ms. Witchel scatters throughout… Still, she gives the best lines to her mother, [who,] even as she free falls… delivers good dialogue.” –Rachel Shteir, The New York Times

“Bittersweet, with levity.” –Good Housekeeping

“Moving.” –People

"A short, lovely memoir, moving in its description of grief and loss, the painfully slow loss, of a beloved parent, never self-indulgent and with enough bright spots to balance the blackness… And there is a moment at the end… that brought me to a full-on weep." –Michael Ruhlman

“Food… comes from a different quadrant of [Witchel’s] universe, a space where she can hold a sort of mental conversation with a beloved parent no longer able to converse. And what a parent! …My mother, like Alex’s, cooked the day’s meals not for pleasure or adventure but as an unromantic responsibility that maintained stable, loving order in our small bit of the cosmos. I read “All Gone” marveling that I could ever have looked down on, rather than up to, such an achievement. It’s an honor to meet Barbara Witchel as she was before her mind was ravaged, and celebrate the kind of cooking she stands for.” –Anne Mendelson, ZesterDaily.com

“A moving tribute… that reminds those whose child–parent relationship has flipped that they are not alone.” –SheKnows.com

“Funny and poignant… a complex mother-daughter love story.” –Maclean’s

“A testament to love, tenacity and the power of home cooking” –MORE Magazine

"In this recipie-dotted memoir, Alex Witchel finds solace among the saucepans as her beloved mother slips away... [Includes] witty culinary asides and nuggets of maternal wisdom." –Whole Living

"Warm and always humane, Witchel's narrative is a poignant, candid reminder of the new normal that now defines so many adult child-aging parent relationships." –Kirkus

“I cannot get over how good Alex Witchel’s writing is. I wish I could park my desk next to hers and learn how to write sentences even half as efficient and muscular and poignant. No one is smarter, funnier, or more graceful. And there’s no one whose kitchen I’d rather be invited into.” –Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones and Butter

“Alex Witchel takes us on an extraordinary journey of the mind and heart as a vibrant parent fades into dementia. She shows us that despite profound loss, we can nourish ourselves with memories that sustain love and give comfort. This book of sharp honesty and deep insight illuminates a time in life when so many of us seek understanding.” –Jerome Groopman, author of How Doctors Think and The Anatomy of Hope

"Alex Witchel is a heroic and funny war correspondent who explains, once and for all, why it's called the nuclear family." –Fran Lebowitz

“This is a story of love and loss told as only Alex Witchel can tell it—with the extraordinary warmth and humor she brings to all of her work. I loved reading it!” –Ina Garten

From the Publisher

In this haunting, unflinching and at times unexpectedly hilarious memoir, Alex Witchel offers up a fiercely honest account of how her adored mother slowly began "disappearing in plain sight." All Gone is a potluck dish containing a variety of ingredients: childhood stories, complete with a cast of vibrantly portrayed relatives; practical knowledge gleaned from Witchel's desperate battle against the relentless advance of her parent's small-stroke-induced dementia; and, yes, real recipes passed down by her mother and grandmother…All Gone is a book that may make you cry (I did), but through some mysterious alchemy it will also leave you with many positive feelings. It will make you smile and even laugh out loud. Running throughout its pages is a powerful affirmation of family bonds, of the soul-sustaining love…that persist from generation to generation.
—Maggie Scarf

The New York Times Book Review

New York Times Magazine writer, columnist, and novelist Witchel saw her mother descend into uncharacteristic forgetfulness and lethargy in the mid-2000s, prompting the author’s rueful, occasionally vitriolic rumination on childhood and familial relations. Growing up in Passaic, N.J., in a mostly nonreligious Jewish community, before moving to Scarsdale (at age 12) as her dad moved up at his Madison Avenue job, Witchel recalls an uneasy “bomb-shelter mentality” pervading their house in the late 1950s and 1960s, a love affair with synthetic food products like Bac-Os that translated into comforting Jewish menus she still loves to cook and for which she offers recipes: meatloaf with cornflakes, frankfurter goulash, fried meat kreplach, and so on. Witchel adored her cerebral mother, who got her doctorate in psychology later in life, teaching for three-plus decades at Iona College, although she was often absent from home, earning the wrath of her husband, Witchel’s father, whose criticism of his daughter’s writing early on convinced her she had no talent. Witchel’s close bond with her mother, described as evolving from helper to lawyer to bodyguard, meant Witchel was stricken personally by her mother’s aging condition, receiving her forgetfulness as a personal failure and betrayal. Being the good daughter only went so far, and Witchel bares her distress frankly in this thin, taut contribution to the growing body of literature devoted to the toll of parent-care. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A journalist's bittersweet memoir about coping with her mother's dementia by preparing her mother's recipes. When New York Times Magazine food columnist and novelist Witchel (The Spare Wife, 2008, etc.) discovered her college-professor mother was ill with dementia, she was shocked. The woman who had successfully managed to juggle marriage, motherhood and a career had also hidden her deteriorating health from her family. Witchel was suddenly forced into the position of becoming a parent to a stubborn, strong-willed mother and watching her begin "the tortuous process of disappearing in plain sight." Overwhelmed by this role-shift and the changes it brought into her life, the author sought comfort by making the meals her mother once prepared for the family, such as meatloaf, spaghetti, roast chicken and potato latkes. Childhood memories came flooding back. Witchel remembers her mother as a gifted woman who defied both familial and social expectations to construct a professional identity for herself; as an individual who "lived her life as an act of will," was the dominant force at home and expected nothing but the best from her children. Her father may have been "the ultimate authority," but it was her mother who "ran the show." She was also the person who guided her daughter toward the love of gastronomy that would eventually find expression in Witchel's work as a journalist. Warm and always humane, Witchel's narrative is a poignant, candid reminder of the new normal that now defines so many adult child-aging parent relationships.

Kirkus Reviews