This is a short memoir of Annie's experiences and feelings as she dealt with her mother's dementia during the few years before her mother's death. Apparently, for the most part it consists of unedited journal entries and short jottings of impressions Annie made during and after her visits with her mother. The title is apparently the last sentence her mother wrote before her death.

This was a moving read. I found it interesting to see some of the differences between elder care in the US and in France. However, if you are looking for an example of Annie's Ernaux's brilliant writing, I am not sure this is the book to read. It was short, I'm not sorry I read it, but I am not sure it is one I would recommend.

3 stars ( )

It appears I have saved the best of Annie Ernaux for last, or near the last of the remaining oeuvre yet for me to read. This was an amazing journey shared with us, her readers. The pain and torture she was going through was beyond real as she daily lost her mother for good. ( )

In contrast to her earlier book, A Man's Place, I Remain in Darkness, an account of the last years of the life of Annie Ernaux's mother, Blanche, is a deeply personal and at times painful to read account. The book consists of short notes that Ernaux took during her mother's decline and demise from Alzheimer's disease. Blanche spent her last years in the geriatric ward of the local hospital, after Ernaux was unable to care for her in her home. Annie visited her at least once a week, and upon returning home wrote short entries about these visits and her mother's condition upon returning home. These entries were compiled, unchanged, in chronological order, unchanged, to form this book. Ernaux mentions that the book is meant to represent "vestiges of pain", rather than an objective chronicle of a person with end-stage Alzheimer's disease. The title of the book is the last sentence that Blanche wrote before her death.

A major difference between these two accounts is that Ernaux was living with her family abroad during all but the last days of her father's life; during her mother's decline, which followed shortly after a serious automobile accident, she had separated from her husband and moved back to her home town with her children. Ernaux also tells us that she could not write a book about her mother as she did about her father in A Man's Place, as she is too identical to her mother to be able to write objectively about her.

In a typical vignette, Ernaux picks up her mother from a private home in an adjacent village, to bring her back "home". Blanche is crestfallen when she realizes that she will be going back to the same hospital where she had resided previously. Upon her arrival to the geriatric ward, Blanche is greeted by other women there, who view her as the "new girl", even though these women are the same ones that were there when Blanche originally left. As Ernaux leaves the ward, her mother calls to her longingly, and she realizes that the mother‒daughter relationship has turned 180 degrees: "The situation is reversed, now she is my little girl. I CANNOT be her mother."

Blanche's slow physical decline coincides with the loss of her mental capabilities, yet she is able to recognize her daughter and celebrate her frequent visits. Ultimately Blanche loses the ability to walk, dress and feed herself, as the disease process accelerates toward the end. Her lucid periods become less frequent and shorter in duration. As Blanche's life nears its end, Ernaux recalls happier memories, as she is not ready for her mother to leave her. She also compares her mother's decline to her own aging and progressive loss of her physical beauty, and fears that she will undergo the same fate. Her grief at the end of the book is almost too painful to read about, especially for this reader, whose parents are approaching their final years.

My review can also be found in issue 3 of the online literary magazine Belletrista: http://belletrista.com/2010/issue3/features_5.php ( )

Distressing and realistic account of Alzheimer's disease and its impact on loved ones. ( )