Review: All Gone, by Alex Witchel

All Gone is a poignant and heartfelt memoir about a parent's decline into dementia. The descriptions of Witchel's mother's increasing forgetfulness and depression are described with wonderful depth and emotion.


Alex Witchel is an accomplished writer (despite what her horrorshow of a father thought), but this book could have used stronger editing and a greater author commitment.


The refreshments mentioned in the subtitle are recipes at the end of each chapter, and are nostalgic but sometimes nasty -- frankfurter golash (shudder)? The book would have been better without them, as most are only tangentially mentioned in the memoir.

Witchel occasionally prattles on about her professional life rather than focusing on the painful reality of her mother's decline, and that feels like filler. In the end I wanted more, but it felt like Witchel was too exhausted to give it.

Rating: three and one half celery sticks