Four Umbrellas

June watches and worries as her husband, Tony, gradually changes his interests, goals, and behaviour. The signs of dementia are all around, but a diagnosis of Alzheimer's takes seven years. Four Umbrellas provides a fresh perspective, bending the usual caretaker narrative by enfolding the voice of the person with the disease.

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A writing couple searches for answers when Alzheimer's causes one of them to lose the place where stories come from — memory.


At the age of fifty-three, Tony walks away from a life of journalism and into an unknown future. June is forty-eight, a writer and teacher, and over the following decade watches as her husband changes — in interests, goals, and behaviour — until Tony has a fall, ending the life they had known.


A diagnosis is seven years away, yet the signs of Alzheimer’s are all around. A suitcase Tony packs for a trip is jammed with four umbrellas, a visual symbol of cognitive looping. But how far back do these signs go? The couple starts probing the past and finding answers. This is not an old person’s disease.