Hard to Forget: An Alzheimer's Story Book

In this remarkable book, Charles P. Pierce intertwines two dramatic stories-the scientific race to discover the causes of Alzheimer's and the moving experiences of the Pierce family as they struggle with the disease.

More than four million Americans develop Alzheimer's every year, just as Charles Pierce's father did-horrifically and genetically-and in Hard to Forget, Pierce takes us deep into the country of this disease, to explore how it affects both the body and a family. When his father is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the author goes on a quest to discover everything he can about the disease. He discusses here Dr. Alois Alzheimer's work early in the twentieth century, then shows how Watson and Crick's announcement of the double-helix structure of DNA opened up the field of Alzheimer's research and led to discoveries by the "genome cowboys"-Dr. Allen Roses, Dr. Peter Hyslop, and others-of the genetic components of the disease. At the heart of this book, too, is the powerful, emotional story of how the Pierce family coped with Alzheimer's and with the threat that the author-and his children-might also inherit it.

Elegant and richly informative, Hard to Forget is a unique and provocative book.

"...a remarkable book that intertwines two stories: the medical quest to discover the causes of Alzheimer's, and the moving experiences of the author's family as they struggle with the disease firsthand.