Turn of Mind Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Alzheimer's Disease & Alice LaPlante and our BookBrowse Review of Turn of Mind.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Discussion Questions

1. What is the time span of the novel? Were you clear about the flashbacks in Jennifer's memory? Even in her surreal perceptions, is she still working out the past in the stories of James, Mark, Fiona, Amanda, and Peter? What about Dr. Tsu? Is the past really the past in Turn of Mind?



2. Would the story have worked as well if it had been told chronologically? Why, or why not? Consider the overlays of memory of all the characters. Do they provide double or triple exposures? The book is a memoir, a case history, and a mystery. "Something just wasn't right about this from the beginning, she says, nothing fit." (p. 278). How does the mystery reflect Jennifer's condition? Does the ground keep shifting, for the reader, the detective, and, of course, Jennifer? Which characters keep searching for the missing piece of mosaic, lost somewhere in Jennifer? Are there times when we know more than Inspector Luton does? More than Jennifer? Or are we all, characters and readers, held with hints and suspicions until the end?



3. "This half state. Life in the shadows. As the neurofibrillary tangles proliferate, as the neuritic plaques harden, as synapses cease to fire and my mind rots out, I remain aware. An unanesthesized patient" (p. 8). Jennifer in her notebook describes her life in a fog. The term "coming of age" has a new meaning in Turn of Mind. As people grow up, we expect a loss of innocence. How is the process reversed in Alzheimer's dementia? When Jennifer is trying to identify faces, she feels less capable than a six-month-old child, trying to "separate the known from the unknown" (p. 145). We think of Shakespeare's "Ages of Man" when Jennifer compares the unhinged despair of fellow patients to the inconsolable, howling infant Fiona with colic.

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Grove Press. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.