Author of the week: Alice LaPlante
The protagonist in Turn of Mind is an Alzheimer’s patient who’s suspected of murdering her best friend, but is incapable of remembering if she committed the crime.
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Short-story writer Alice LaPlante has come up with an unusual way to find drama in a painful subject, said Jane Ciabattari in TheDailyBeast.com. During most of the 10 years since her mother developed symptoms of Alzheimer’s, LaPlante has used writing to process the experience of watching a parent drift in and out of lucidity—but she didn’t think any of that material was suitable for publication. When she turned to dreaming up a fictional mystery, however, something clicked. The protagonist in Turn of Mind, LaPlante’s debut novel, is an Alzheimer’s patient who’s suspected of murdering her best friend yet has been rendered incapable of remembering if she committed the crime. LaPlante herself was in the dark about the character’s guilt through much of the writing. “I didn’t know until 50 pages from the end who committed the crime,” she says.
LaPlante is quick to point out she in no way intended the protagonist to be a portrait of her mother, said Jill Owens in Powells.com. “She’s not based on anyone I know,” she says. But the disease draws out a dark side in the character that LaPlante has seen in her mother too. “There’s a lot of anger and aggression that comes out. It’s not just the forgetting,” she says. To LaPlante, the mystery of the disease is whether or not the kind of anger her mother now frequently indulges in is an expression of the true self. “The things she says—are those just now coming out because some editor is gone, or is it the disease? I don’t think I know the answer to that.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
6 new horror novels to read this fall
These upcoming releases will have you on the edge of your seat — or hiding under the covers
By David Faris Published
-
6 bucolic homes in New Hampshire
Feature Featuring an island house in Meredith and a private pond in Lee
By The Week Staff Published
-
Etaf Rum recommends 6 empowering reads centered around women
Feature The author suggests works by Zora Neale Hurston, Sylvia Plath and more
By The Week Staff Published
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-ups
feature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”
By The Week Staff Last updated