The Story isn’t Over: Narrating a Future with Dementia in Guillaume Musso’s Central Park

Abstract

<p>In her introduction to <em>The Diseased Brain and the Failing Mind</em>, Martina Zimmermann writes that contemporary discourses present loss as the key concept for thinking about and understanding dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. In this article, I focus on the perceived loss of the future in fictional representations of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and the role that this anticipatory absence plays in the foreclosure of a life story. I suggest that what is often understood and assumed to be a lack of future in experiences of dementia may more accurately and reassuringly be represented as a change that foregrounds transformation rather than loss. Building on recent work in the philosophy of health and illness, dementia may more constructively be understood as a nonvoluntary but existentially ‘transformative experience’ to open up new ways of living that are not simply frustrating and restrictive but offer new ways of perceiving and orienting oneself in the world. By re-establishing the time and place of the future in literary discourses, we may contribute to attempts to reframe dementia as a turning point or new beginning, rather than a catastrophic conclusion. Through analysis of Guillaume Musso’s <em>polar</em> thriller, <em>Central Park</em> (2014), I propose that the novel challenges dominant discourses of decline and despair to offer new ways of thinking about life with dementia that are meaningful, fulfilling, and future-oriented.<br></p>