One Hundred Names For Love: A Memoir (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
I'm not sure I would have enjoyed this memoir as much had the writer and her husband who suffered the stroke not been writers and, more accurately, wordsmiths. Ackerman writes beautifully even amidst the horrors of West's stroke and five-year recovery. The book would challenge anyone to ask whether he/she could assist in a spouse's recovery so intimately, so selflessly. But it is precisely Ackerman's determination to use words to get her husband speaking again, and as he begins to do so, he returns to his wordsmithing skills. Anyone who has dealt with stroke victims would find the book encouraging, and anyone who loves language will enjoy the words on the page. He's a novelist, she writes mainly non-fiction, he's older and had children while she had only his... he has a HUGE vocabulary... this was very close to home for me. I want to read it again as an e-book so I can easily look up all the beautiful new-to-me words they used (a big part of the story, could even say that "language is a character" like you sometimes here folks say "setting is a character"). She writes about their lives as writers and how their love overcame the major challenge of a brain malfunction. Shows how much we don't know and can't assume about medical knowledge and the importance of loving someone in just the way that person needs to be loved. I'm very grateful to the friends in my writing group who pointed me to this author. I was amazed, humbled, and inspired.
What do You think about One Hundred Names For Love: A Memoir (2012)?
Something I probably would not have read if it had not been a Book Group selection.
—claudiuludosan
I was really enjoying this but lost it somewhere and never got to finish! Booo.
—iLove1D
horrific yet ultimately uplifting account of recovery from a stroke
—keith
Beautifully written; at times heartbreaking and hilarious.
—Lovelovelovereading
An amazing love story & testament to the human spirit.
—Talia
