In today’s author interview, Meg Howrey discusses Body Language, her latest novel about Alzheimer’s, caregiving, family conflict, and the difficult question of how we honor a person’s wishes when they can no longer make decisions for themselves.
When I finished Body Language, I found myself thinking about it long after I’d put the book down—not because it offers an easy answer to the difficult questions at its center, but because it refuses to. Howrey’s novel asks what it means to honor someone’s autonomy while also forcing us to consider the very real emotional, financial, and practical costs that can fall on the people left to provide care.
What I especially appreciated about the novel was the way Howrey lets each of the three sisters—Sloane, Laurel, and Nanette—have a legitimate perspective. None of them is simply the voice of reason while the others are being selfish or misguided. Their feelings about their mother’s wishes are tangled up with their own histories, fears, relationships, and ideas about what they can realistically take on. And somehow, despite the seriousness of the subject matter, Body Language is also genuinely funny in places.
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