An Absent Mind by Eric Rill is about 71-year-old Saul Reimer, whose sanity is affected by his difficult struggle with Alzheimer's. It is also a story about his relationships with his loved ones and their journey. Saul used to be a man in control before the disease overpowers his mind. We follow and share his thoughts as Alzheimer's is slowly taking over his life. We also share the thoughts of his wife Monique, his daughter Florence, and his son Joey in dealing with this challenge as a family.

The start of the novel sees Saul getting into trouble due to his dementia – ”I was always considered a bit peculiar, so no one probably suspected anything until a dreary October afternoon when I removed my gray flannel trousers, opened the front door of my house, and ambled down the street." An Absent Mind clearly gives us a great and personal insight into Alzheimer's. Author Eric Rill also gives a voice to Dr. Tremblay, Saul's Alzheimer's specialist, so readers can understand the facts about this disease more deeply from an expert’s perspective. Though it is poignant and an emotional roller coaster, this novel is undeniably triumphant in giving readers valuable knowledge.

I felt a great connection to the characters and their emotional struggle. All in all, this is an amazing novel that pulls the heartstrings of every reader. Not only does it portrays Alzheimer's disease in depth, but it also shows the little things that most of us take for granted in life.

An Absent Mind by Eric Rill is a fiction story about a man's struggle with Alzheimer’s and how the challenges of living with this disease affected his family. At age 71, Saul Nathaniel Reimer was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after his behavior had become more odd than usual, including walking down the street with no trousers. The following seven years would be the hardest on his family as they struggled to help him cope with a disease that took his memory, reducing his lucid moments to hours and then to mere minutes, until the father and husband they had once known completely disappeared. Monique, Saul's wife and primary caregiver, had the roughest time of them all as she watched her husband change from the man she once knew to a confused, depressed, frustrated and sometimes physically violent Alzheimer’s patient. This book tells not just Saul's story, but the story of his wife and their children, too, as they tried to deal with sadness, frustration, guilt, resentment and all other sorts of emotional chaos as they lived through this nightmare from the beginning to the very end.

An Absent Mind by Eric Rill reads like a true-life story, evoking deep sympathy for a man and his family as they lived through the most dreadful years of their lives during which Alzheimer’s reduced a grown man to a baby and then to nothing. My deepest sympathy went to Monique who gave her all, including countless sleepless nights and enduring physical abuse, to provide the best care to her husband, bottling in her own stress and frustration. It was an emotional journey as each member of the family tried to cope the best way they could. An Absent Mind gave me a clear insight into the emotional turmoil that Alzheimer’s patients endure and how all this affects those near and dear to them. Above all, I was deeply touched and inspired by the family's undying love and devotion.