Cascade

Cascade examines the subject of growing old with sensitive honesty, through the stories of three main characters. Ellie succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease her husband Dan suffers slow physical debilitation...Cascade examines the subject of growing old with sensitive honesty, through the stories of three main characters. Ellie succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease her husband Dan suffers slow physical debilitation even as his mental faculties remain sharp, and Dan’s sister’s Rosemarie, though still sound in body and mind, finds her freedom impaired by the selfishness and cruelty of younger relatives. The novel engages with the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease in a Caribbean context, where displacement, memory, identity, loss and resistance remain crucial and enduring preoccupations. “The author skilfully delineates the separate characters through the nuances of their speech and memories, and draws a poignant portrait of educated middle-class Jamaicans from independence to the present….Few if any works of Caribbean literature have described so thoroughly and so movingly the tragedies, great and small, of aging.” – Nicholas Laughlin, Editor, Caribbean Review of Books