When Annette's mother, Helena, starts to forget things she's always known, Annette researches ways to keep her mother from losing touch with the world. The book chronicles Helena's battle with Alzheimer's disease, looking to mythology, science, literature, and history to find meaning and beauty even as her cognition fails.

James Brown, author of Apology to the Young Addict, calls the book "a hauntingly powerful work of the sort only the very best of writers may hope to achieve in a lifetime," while Harvard neuroscientist Daniel L. Schacter finds it "an essential book that both moves and informs."

CHILD OF EARTH AND STARRY HEAVEN is the story of a daughter coming to terms with her mother's dementia. Sad and joyous, it is a meditation on what makes us human.

For readers of The Still Point of the Turning World and Tuesdays with Morrie, a profound and moving memoir about motherhood, memory, and memory loss.