HOW A DEMENTIA DIAGNOSIS LEAD TO A WRITING COUPLE’S LEGACY PROJECT

Finding Inspiration When Life Hands You Lemons 

by Marcy McCreary

My husband Lew McCreary is a brilliant writer. He is the author of two critically-acclaimed published novels, Mount’s Mistake and The Minus Man, a novel that Anne Rice proclaimed “deliciously satisfying” and “deeply memorable” in the New York Times Book Review. John Banville compared my husband’s writing to that of Cormac McCarthy. High praise indeed. But here’s the thing . . . maybe I should’ve started that first sentence with the past tense of “is”—“was.” And that’s because Lew’s writing days are over. He has dementia and dementia is a thief. He’s been robbed of his ability to tell stories and do so in his haunting, poetic prose. And what makes this even more painful is that he was on the cusp of finalizing a brilliant new novel just as symptoms emerged.

I want to pause here to say that Lew has also served as my inspiration and mentor in my personal journey to become a published author. When I was laid off from a job in 2016 (and grousing), he encouraged me to write a novel (and stop grousing), because I had mentioned it was on my bucket list. And so I did! And not only did he motivate me to write a book, he critiqued it along the way, spurring me on to punch above my weight (I loved/hated when he would highlight a sentence or paragraph in my manuscript and write in the margin, “You can do better!”). I’m pretty sure that without his guidance, advice, and encouragement, I would never have gotten a publishing deal.

In late 2021, around the time he finished his novel, The 13th Step, he was finding it difficult to concentrate and edit the manuscript, something that used to come quite easily to him. In the fall of 2022 he found out why when he got the diagnosis of mild dementia. Although he finished writing The 13th Step before his dementia diagnosis, the arduous work of editing fell squarely in the midst of early symptoms, which are centered around forgetfulness. But other problems cropped up, those having to do with organization, troubleshooting and problem-solving—the three essential skills needed to edit a novel. Seems dementia messes with those skills as well.

He put the manuscript in a drawer. In the spring of 2023, I went to a writers’ conference and spoke to an editor of a publishing company who said she would be happy to look at the manuscript and determine if it was ready for publication. A few months later, the editor got back in touch with me. She found it to be an intriguing story and praised his writing. But…she also said it needed a developmental edit, as all manuscripts do. Even though an author is given guidance through the developmental edit phase, editing is still a difficult task for someone dealing with the symptoms of mild dementia. He knew he had to find an exceptional editor who could synthesize the feedback/critique and execute on his vision. And he did.

Even with final manuscript in hand, it was clear that the traditional publishing route was no longer feasible for Lew. A friend of mine suggested funding the book project on Kickstarter. And so we set out on that path. The Kickstarter campaign (which ran in April 2024) was wildly successful, surpassing the funding goal and making it possible to produce not only an e-book and a paperback, but a special hardcover edition and an exceptionally-narrated audiobook. The e-book, paperback and audiobook will be available on Amazon later this year (if all goes according to plan) or early next year (if life gets in the way).

I’m often asked if my husband’s dementia has affected my writing career. In a nutshell: I have less time to write. Chores and tasks that my husband used to manage (and I took for granted) now rest with me. So, I get up a little bit earlier these days and instead of writing 1,000 words a day, I aim for 500. I can no longer travel at whim, so attending writers’ conferences and arranging bookstore appearances require more planning. But, I am finding innovative ways of making this new normal work for both of us.

I started writing The Summer of Love and Death when his early symptoms emerged. Hints of something “off” caught my attention in the fall of 2021, which we both dismissed as “senior moments.” Some behaviors were funny (constantly buying jars of jam), others quite frightening (like when he threw the car into neutral while driving because he used to drive a stick shift). But by the spring of 2022, the memory snafus were piling up, and the alarm bells were ringing loud and clear. I started keeping a journal in order to document the unusual behaviors and memory lapses—or as I referred to them: “glitches in the matrix”—for discussion with the doctor.

When I finished the first draft of The Summer of Love and Death in the fall of 2022, it felt flat to me. The story lacked an uneasy and disconcerting undercurrent, which, in my opinion, is essential to intensifying the surface tension of the main plot. The subplots in my earlier novels, The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon and The Murder of Madison Garcia revealed complex and shifting family dynamics that propelled my protagonist’s arc and gave the overall story depth and heart. I struggled to come up with a meaningful subplot in this third installment, one that would instigate a profound change in my main character, Detective Susan Ford. Then one day, I was flipping through that journal in which I documented Lew’s early behaviors, and I finally hit upon the idea of challenging Susan’s notion about family obligations, unconditional love, and sacrifice.

The journal reminded me of how baffling the early symptoms were, and I thought about how the already-strained relationship between Susan and her mother, Vera (a recovering alcoholic), might play out if Vera began to exhibit signs of cognitive impairment and Susan was thrust into the role of caregiver—all of this happening while she was trying to solve a murder. And when Lew gave the idea a thumbs up, I took the plunge. At first I was hesitant to go there, but in the end I found it cathartic. 

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THE SUMMER OF LOVE AND DEATH

“Refreshingly smart, witty, and sophisticated . . .” ―Natalie Symons author of Lies in Bone, on The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon

“Propulsive, addictive, with lush, visceral prose and richly-layered characters . . .” ―May Cobb, author of My Summer Darlings, on The Murder of Madison Garcia

The summer of ’69: memorable for some, murder for others.

Detective Susan Ford and her new partner, Detective Jack Tomelli, are called to a crime scene at the local summer stock theater where they find the director of Murder on the Orient Express gruesomely murdered―naked, face caked in makeup, pillow at his feet, wrists and ankles bound by rope. When Susan describes the murder to her dad, retired detective Will Ford, he recognizes the MO of a 1969 serial killer . . . a case he worked fifty years ago.

Will remembers a lot of things about that summer―the Woodstock Festival, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Miracle Mets―yet he is fuzzy on the details of the decades-old case. But when Susan and Jack discover the old case files, his memories start trickling back. And with each old and new clue, Susan, Jack, and Will must narrow down the pool of suspects before the killer strikes again.

For readers who enjoy mysteries by Richard Osman, Stacy Willingham, Charlie Donlea, Benjamin Stevenson, and Shari Lapena.

BUY HERE

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Marcy McCreary is the author of The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon, a 2022 Silver Falchion finalist for Best Investigator Mystery and The Murder of Madison Garcia, a Society of Voice Arts and Sciences winner for Best Audiobook Narration—Mystery. The Summer of Love and Death is the third book in her Ford Family Mystery Series, released in August 2024. She graduated from The George Washington University with a B.A. in American literature and political science and held various executive positions in marketing and communications. She lives in Hull, MA with her husband Lew. She is an active advocate and fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing