Leaving Tinkertown - (Literature and Medicine) by Tanya Ward Goodman (Paperback)

About the Book

"This is a memoir about a father's illness and death from early onset Alzheimer's disease and will be helpful to other people who find themselves in the position of caring for a demented family member. The author's father, Ross Ward, was the founder of Tinkertown, the folk art museum located on the highway to Sandia Peak"--

Book Synopsis

When Tanya Ward Goodman came home to New Mexico to visit her dad at the end of 1996, he was fifty-five years old and just beginning to show symptoms of the Alzheimer's disease that would kill him six years later. Early onset dementia is a shock and a challenge to every family, but the Wards were not an ordinary family. Ross Ward was an eccentric artist and collector whose unique museum, Tinkertown, brought visitors from all over the world to the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque. In this book Tanya tells Ross's story and her own, sharing the tragedy and the unexpected comedy of caring for this funny, stubborn man who remained a talented artist even as he changed before his family's eyes.

From the Back Cover

"Goodman writes beautifully. The characters are well drawn, compelling, and convincing. Most importantly, the book has genuine emotional power, which builds as the story unfolds, even though how it will end is understood from the beginning."--Frank Huyler, author of The Blood of Strangers

Review Quotes

A brutally honest account of how a family fought against the incursions of Alzheimer's, and their anguish at being unable to stop the disintegration. . . . If you read one book that deals with living with dementia, make it this one.--Mark Liebenow, Widower's Grief blog

Tanya Ward Goodman has written a book full of light and love, about a thoroughly modern family who find unique connections amid complicated loss. This book is not just a testimony to the influence of the larger-than-life father whose existence -- and illness -- power the narrative, it is also a statement about the luminous presence that same man leaves behind in all those he loved and who loved him. Leaving Tinkertown teaches us about devotion, loyalty and inheritance, and all their profoundest truths.
--Vicki Forman, author of This Lovely Life, winner of the PEN Center Award for Creative Nonfiction and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize

About the Author

Tanya Ward Goodman's essays have appeared in the Cup of Comfort anthology series, Literary Mama, The Huffington Post, and TheNextFamily.com. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.