Jann Arden

Jann describes her mother's decline into Alzheimer's disease and the death of her father in this candid memoir. While it's a heartbreaking story, Arden infuses it with an abundance of wit while showing patience, understanding and good humour. Her amiable personality and sense of fun, which she obviously shares with her mother, shines through the despair making the story heartening rather than despondent. Photos, recipes and illustrations enhance the book. Arden's talent as a writer matches show more that of her music making this much more than I expected.

"I started by cooking dinner for them once or twice a week. Within a month, they were coming arm in arm across the driveway towards my house almost every evening, chattering away like two old birds chirping on a wire. If Dad had had his way, he would have been on my doorstep by three." show less

subtitled: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives With Memory Loss.

Canadian singer/songwriter Jann Arden writes of this turning point in her life, as she unexpectedly became the chief caregiver for her parents. Her father had dementia along with a host of other physical illnesses (diabetes, heart attack, stroke) and eventually passed away. Her mom has Alzheimer's. Jann is eloquent, candid, brutally honest (and funny) as only she can be, as she chronicles her journey into unknown show more territory with her parents, especially her mom. As a writer, she structured this book as a diary/journal over a 2-year period (2014- 2016) and not only provided snapshots of living with her mom's memory loss, but also some real insights into the journey she herself was making, as she tried to come to terms with it all. And she does so with grace, honesty and strength.

Her parents' home is on her property so that they were only across the driveway from her, making it easier for her to be able to provide care at close range, at the beginning. She began to cook for them, a real comfort for all of them, and this book also includes some of her favourite recipes. The book, by the way, is visually beautiful; Jann's photography throughout is quite stunning. The food illustrations that accompany the recipes are also lovely.

Alzheimer's is a terrible disease. Often, though, as Jann says, the patient herself is not sad about it, is often (blessedly?) unaware of the losses. It's a disease that, in fact, affects everyone else around the patient. Jann shares how she ran the gamut of emotions - denial, fear, anger, frustration, strength - and some of her passages are quite revealing. Once, she took her mom on a German river cruise:

"The German river cruise with my mother was a gift, although she thought we were on a train trip. Since we could see the shore blur past us, I guess she assumed we were rolling along on tracks. I corrected her once and then caught myself when she was talking about it again: why do I need to tell her where she is and what she is on? I have to stop being the memory police, stop needing to be right all the time. It's exhausting and completely selfish."

Jann had had a difficult relationship with her dad. When he was dying, in hospital, she wrote:

"The man I used to be afraid of is now a meek and mild, helpless child. I was thinking about how much resentment I have been carrying around and how much I don't want to still be carrying it. I want to let it go. Maybe today I'll start. I dragged it with me because I thought I needed it to protect myself. Silly what our hearts and minds do to us."

Through it all, Jann continued to work, to write:

"...music and how fantastic it is for the soul. Music saves me every day."

She talks about how unpredictable day to day life can be. What will her mom remember (or not remember) today? There are mood swings:

"She looks at me with such hatred that it takes my breath away. And then it passes, and I see her bubble to the surface of herself again and I wonder how my life got to this place...And yet, we fall into so much laughter, feel so much insane gladness and it teaches me constantly. It makes me stronger and humbler and more empathetic and caring and kind. At least, I hope it does. It's just life being life and you've got to embrace it all with your heart pounding away on your sleeve and a smile on your face...and don't forget to cry, because that'll get you through anything."

"I'm trying to focus on what I have, and not what I don't have." show less

This book is one part memoir, one part recipe, one part photo album and it comes out as a lovely tribute Jann Arden's mother and father. It is an honest, humerus life affirming account of grief, coping, remembrance and resilience. I connected very closely with Jann's writing- have always enjoyed her music and have great respect for her courage in writing this very personal account. She gave words to many of the feelings I experienced as I watched my own parents struggle with the show more diminishments and humiliations aging handed them as an exit gift. Reading Arden's work also reminded me that they handed me their own parting gifts of grace, acceptance, rage and love. The book is a keeper. show less

The marketing blurb for Jann Arden’s debut novel reads:

On mean Harp Bittlemore’s blighted farm, hidden away in the Backhills, nothing has gone right for a very long time. Crops don’t grow, the pigs and chickens stay skinny and the three aged dairy cows, Berle, Crilla and Dally, are so desperate they are plotting an escape. The one thing holding them back is the thought of abandoning young Willa, the single bright point in their life since her older sister, Margaret, ran away.

But Willa show more Bittlemore, just turning 14, is planning her own rebellion. Something doesn’t add up in the story she’s been told about her missing sister, and she’s beginning to question if her horrible parents are even her parents at all. Just as things are really coming to a head, a bright young police officer starts investigating a cold case involving a baby stolen from a little rural hospital 28 years earlier, and Willa and the cows find out exactly how far the Bittlemores will go to protect a festering secret.

Written with Jann’s trademark outrageous humour and full of her down-to-earth wisdom, The Bittlemores is a rural fairytale, a coming-of-age story and a prairie mystery all-in-one, saturated with her observations of the world she grew up in and her deep connection to the animals we exploit. This marvel of a first novel digs into how people come to be so cruel, but it also glories in the miracle of human kindness.

I came to Arden’s novel through the recommendation of a dear friend with whom my literary tastes, as he puts it, often intersect. It would be disingenuous of me not to admit my first reaction was: Oh yeah? Another literary attempt by another celebrity. So it was with that unfair prejudice I flipped open the first pages of Arden’s absurdist tale fully prepared to begin huffing and skimming. That, however, didn’t happen at all.

Immediately I was drawn in by the spare but at times beautiful writing, the frankness of her prose, the honesty of the — albeit fantastical — story she spun. Now you have to understand there are talking cows in this tale. Even a cat. And perhaps the pigs come into the conversations, and maybe even the chickens. It’s all rather Animal Farm, but also not, and most definitely not a dark cautionary tale. And did I mention one cow can write? Just a little? In the dirt with a hoof? And those most definitely are cautionary messages.

But what is truly remarkable throughout all this nonsensical, fantastical, weird and often disturbing tale is that not for a moment did I question the reality of these absurdities; that, in itself, speaks highly of Arden’s ability to suspend reader disbelief and ensnare you in her delicious, diabolical web.

What’s even more impressive, is that Arden employs an omniscient point of view, so that in any given page the reader is travelling from the thoughts of one character to another, all done seamlessly and with an innate ability to handle the unreliable narrator.

That being said, this is no gut-busting romp. Throughout I had to wonder how much of the character sketches and actions were autobiographical, because being a survivor of childhood abuse myself, there was a great deal of gravitas and truth in what Arden relates, and at times I found that familiar and disturbing. So, if you’re likely to spin off into panic or depression reading about that sort of thing, I would suggest you go into the story forewarned.

My one and only criticism is the happily-ever after ending, which Arden absolutely is allowed, given this is her story and her vision. But for myself, I found it too saccharine, and it was at that point my disbelief came into play. I suppose, however, given all the two main characters endured at the hands of the alcoholic and crazed Bittlemores, they’re allowed their happily-ever-after.

Should you read The Bittlemores? Sure. Why not? It’s a good story, well-told, with dastardly villains, downtrodden women, and downtrodden cows (one of whom is literate), and pigs, and chickens, and an orange cat. show less