Memory lessons

Jerry Winakur has been a medical doctor for over thirty years, with a specialty in gerontology. But all his years of service helping patients and their families adjust to the challenges of aging did not prepare him for becoming father to his own father, who had become as needy as any child. Part memoir, part manifesto, Memory Lessons is a narrative exploration on what it’s like to be medical counselor to countless patients, and it is also Dr. Winakur’s personal story, focusing on his father’s decline due to old age and Alzheimer’s. In both of his roles—highly skilled professional and loving son—he is hard pressed to alter a course that devastates his dad and tears at his family. As medical science extends life, the country is faced with “a vast inland sea of elders.” Who will care for them, Dr. Winakur wonders—and how?