{"product_id":"the-vanishing-family-love-fate-and-the-quest-to-end-dementia-september-29th-2026","title":"The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia (September 29th, 2026)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the #1\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebestselling author of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eHidden Valley Road\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003ecomes the heart-wrenching journey of a family facing an unthinkable destiny, whose flawed genetic code might hold the long-sought key to a cure for dementia.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the idyllic American town of Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, there lived a family with nine siblings, the youngest a girl named Barb. As the older children headed off to college and started their lives, only Barb was home to see their beautiful, still-young mother fall under a gothic spell, changing into someone she didn't recognize: withdrawn, neglectful, uncaring. Thus begins \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Vanishing Family,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003ejournalist Robert Kolker's superb follow-up to \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eHidden Valley Road\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (\"Deeply compassionate and chilling,\" wrote \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e). This family, we learn, has a genetic mutation that causes dementia, but with an especially cruel twist. As early as their forties, formerly loving parents and hard-driving executives will lose their jobs, have affairs, take up drinking--shed all inhibitions and sense of responsibility--and become people their families hardly know. Their former personalities seem to vanish--and there is a fifty-fifty chance that it will happen to their children, too.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Vanishing Family\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e unfolds like a heartbreaking thriller as the siblings begin to realize that what happened to their mother is happening to them: first one, then two, three, four, and more begin to change. Sue, in search of a calling, finds her place in caring for the others. Barb sets out to find a cure. Alongside their story, Kolker weaves in the dramatic scientific fight against dementia; after decades of blind alleys, this this family's rare form of FTD (frontotemporal dementia) might lead to a breakthrough in the prevention and treatment of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eall\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003edementia--including the scourge of Alzheimer's disease. Moving, intimate, unexpectedly hopeful and redemptive, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Vanishing Family\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is an enthralling narrative about one family's fate, and a medical detective story that speaks to all of us who fear losing ourselves at the end.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":" The Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52882274877757,"sku":"9780385551038","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0695\/3235\/2829\/files\/TheVanishingFamily.jpg?v=1787074957","url":"https:\/\/bookshelfthomasville.com\/products\/the-vanishing-family-love-fate-and-the-quest-to-end-dementia-september-29th-2026","provider":" The Bookshelf","version":"1.0","type":"link"}