A LABOR OF LOVE, VOLUME 2

Arapakos’ memoir chronicles helping a father suffering from Huntington’s Disease.

In the continuing story of her father, the author here moves the story forward into his years of increasing illness and debilitation as he experienced the complications of Huntington’s. Arapakos organizes this account of her experiences using the imaginative conceit of the 12 labors of Hercules, with, for instance, the cleaning of the Augean Stables corresponding to cleaning out her father’s house, and the capture of the Cretan Bull standing in for the tangled process of moving her father into an assisted living facility. As her father’s disease progresses and he gradually loses the independence he so fiercely loved, Arapakos charts how she came to handle “the lion’s share” of the responsibility for her father’s care. She splits her narrative along several lines, giving readers a surfeit of information about Huntington’s and other neurological diseases while documenting her father’s slow, grudging, rear-guard action against the loss of the life he knew. (“The doctors he tried to solicit all ended up to no avail because of the abundant evidence stacked against him,” reads one passage. “In the end, his ability to travel abroad was terminated when I hid his passport.”) These narrative braids strengthen each other as the story progresses to its inevitable ending; thanks to the author’s great storytelling skill, readers will be caught up in the drama. Arapakos often deploys very dramatic language to describe the nightmare her father is experiencing: “It’s like watching the free-flowing, unconstrained blathering of a man straddling two continents,” she writes; “two brains, two histories, and he’s on fire for all the memories gushing out, yet all the while logic gets lacerated and can’t process what’s relevant at hand.” Her story of her father and herself contending with the “third party” of his disease (and how that third party affects their relationship) is never less than gripping.

A detailed and very involving account of a daughter dealing with her father’s debilitating disease.