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Published Feb 2009
208 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
The adventure begins when Meg’s mother, Addie, vacationing in Florida, takes a spill. At the hospital, Addie bolts upright on her gurney and yells “I demand an autopsy!” before passing out cold.
“One minute, she is unconscious, the next, she’s nuts,” observes Meg Federico in this hilarious and poignant memoir of taking care of eighty-year-old Addie and her relatively new (and equally old) husband, Walter, in their not-so-golden years.
Addie’s accident is a portent of things to come over the next two years as Meg oversees her mother’s home care in the Departure Lounge, the nickname Meg gives Addie and Walter’s house in suburban New Jersey. It is a place of odd behaviors and clashing caregivers, where chaos and confusion reign supreme.
Meg had expected that Addie and Walter would settle into a Rockwellian dotage of docile dependency. Instead the pair regress into terrible teens. Meg watches from the sidelines in disbelief as her mother and stepfather, forbidden by doctors to drink, conspire to order cases of scotch by phone; as Addie’s attendant accuses the evening staff of midnight voodoo; as the increasingly demented Walter’s sex drive becomes unbridled and mail-order sex aids are delivered to the front door. Meg jumps in to cope with the pandemonium – even as she struggles to manage her own family back in Nova Scotia.
"Starred Review. Federico gently delineates the humiliating burden caused by the loss of memory, while humanely portraying a brave new sympathy and understanding between her mother and herself." - Publishers Weekly.
"A funny yet touching portrayal of the indignities of aging." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Dealing with her aging mother and stepfather is not fun, but in Federico's deft hands, it's poignant, terrifying, and very funny." - Phyllis Theroux, author of California and Other States of Grace.
This information about Welcome to the Departure Lounge was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Meg Federico regularly writes humor for the National Post. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Shambhala Sun, and Agni Magazine (Boston University Press). She has written commentary and created documentaries for CBC Radio. For several years, she wrote a successful column, "Transitions: Issues in Caregiving," for the Halifax Daily News. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her family.
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