Book review: The Inheritance by Niki Kapsambelis

The thirty-third book I read in 2017 was The Inheritance: A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease by Niki Kapsambelis.  The family in question is the DeMoe family of North Dakota, and the inheritance is the genetic mutation that causes early-onset Alzheimer's disease.  Alzheimer's in cruel enough in old age, but the type the DeMoe family carries the gene for strikes in the early forties, stealing away what ought to be the prime years of an individual's life.

Even worse, the DeMoes and their children and grandchildren are faced with the choice to be tested and know with certainty if they carry the gene or to live in ignorance of what could be a ticking time bomb.  The scenes in which those who choose to be tested discover their results to either sobs of relief or freezing dread are almost as moving as Kampsabelis's methodical depiction of the decline of those stricken with the disease. 

What you will remember from this book is the DeMoes' story, but interspersed with it is the story of the doctors, scientists, and researchers with whom the DeMoes work, donating their blood, cells, and precious time in the hope that a breakthrough will be made to counter the disease, if not in time for them, then for their descendants.  What is heartbreaking is that, even by the time I read this book, a few of the drugs and therapies the DeMoes contributed to had already been announced to have failed.