Green Vanilla Tea (Marie Williams, Finch Publishing)

Green Vanilla Tea is the winner of the 2013 Finch Memoir Prize and it’s easy to see why. Marie Williams, her husband Dominic, and their two sons Michael and Nicolas are recent arrivals to Brisbane from Vancouver. As the family juggles a new environment, jobs, schools and friends, Dominic starts to exhibit strange behaviour, from berating a colleague at a party to attacking his son in the study. Something is wrong but Dominic refuses to see a doctor. Is it a midlife crisis, a nervous breakdown or depression? As Dominic becomes more erratic and disconnected from his family, including draining all the money from the family’s bank accounts to support nearly every charity in Australia, leaving the family virtually penniless, Williams becomes increasingly bewildered. Finally, Dominic is admitted to a psych ward for assessment, where he is diagnosed with dementia and motor neurone disease, for which there is no cure. Williams and her two teenage sons now have to deal with Dominic’s inevitable decline. Williams has written a powerful and heartbreaking account of her husband’s illness, and the challenges faced by the family, which never loses sight of the immense love that binds this family together. This is an inspiring and important memoir.

Sarina Gale is a freelance writer and bookseller at the Sun Bookshop in Yarraville

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Category: Reviews