Forever Today

A Memoir Of Love And Amnesia

Deborah Wearing

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Paperback

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English

Corgi
01 December 2005

Biography; Biography: general

The man who lost his memory- the moving true story of an English musician crippled by total amnesia, by his wife.

Clive Wearing has one of the most extreme cases of amnesia ever known. In 1985, a virus completely destroyed a part of his brain essential for memory, leaving him trapped in a limbo of the constant present. Every conscious moment is for him as if he has just come round from a long coma, an endlessly repeating loop of awakening. A brilliant conductor and BBC music producer, Clive was at the height of his success when the illness struck. As damaged as Clive was, the musical part of his brain seemed unaffected, as was his passionate love for Deborah, his wife.

For seven years he was kept in the London hospital where the ambulance first dropped him off, because there was nowhere else for him to go. Deborah desperately searched for treatments and campaigned for better care. After Clive was finally established in a new special hospital, she fled to America to start her life over again. But she found she could never love another the way she loved Clive. Then Clive's memory unaccountably began to improve, ten years after the illness first struck. She returned to England. Today, although Clive still lives in care, and still has the worst case of amnesia in the world, he continues to improve. They renewed their marriage vows in 2002.

This is the story of a life lived outside time, a story that questions and redefines the essence of what it means to be human. It is also the story of a marriage, of a bond that runs deeper than conscious thought.

By: Deborah Wearing
Imprint: Corgi
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 194mm, Width: 126mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 260g
ISBN: 9780552771696
ISBN 10: 0552771694
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 01 December 2005
Recommended Age: From 0 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Deborah Wearing campaigned for specialist services for brain-injured people and helped found a national charity, the Amnesia Association (merged in 1991 with Headway). She now works as a communications officer in the NHS.

Reviews for Forever Today: A Memoir Of Love And Amnesia

This is a harrowing, haunting and heartening book - a loss-story which is also a love story. It takes us deep inside the question of what it means to be human. -- Andrew Motion Sometimes terrifying, sometimes very funny, and always deeply moving, Deborah Wearing's beautifully written testament to a love that survives all the ravages of her husband's amnesia is a book to seize the heart. -- Lindsay Clarke, author of the Whitbread winning The Chymical Wedding A remarkable book: absorbing, moving and humbling. -- Fay Weldon Loving, terrifying and often extremely funny, an astonishing voyage into the very heart of what makes us human. -- Deborah Moggach I had the privilege of filming a documentary about Deborah and Clive and like the rest of the crew I was immediately struck with the extraordinary patience and affection with which Deborah dealt with this appalling ordeal. In Forever Today she takes us further than ever into this remarkable experience. -- Jonathan Miller 'This is a harrowing story of a human tragedy. Harrowing yet uplifting, for it portrays the indefatigable human spirit of two people grappling with an unprecedented and shattering dilemma. A sensitive and deeply moving account, a heart rending love story - but unlike any other ever told' -- Jack Ashley (Rt. Hon. Lord Ashley of Stoke) 'A compelling, poignant and exquisitely written account of a young woman reaching into the dark empty spaces of her husband's damaged brain and finding love within the limitations of his brilliant but fractured mind. It is the most dramatic description of ""the abyss of non-being"" since Oliver Sacks' Awakenings' -- Marjorie Wallace, founder of SANE 'Overwhelmingly moving...Her harrowing book is a description of utterly unselfish love. It also raises scary questions about what exactly makes us human.' -- Val Hennessy * Daily Mail * 'An extraordinary story of constancy in love, and Deborah Wearing tells in brilliantly.' * Evening Standard * 'Delivers a message of hope about human identity. It is similar to the moral drawn by John Bayley after his wife, Irish Murdoch, was struck down by Alzheimer's and it is this: 'Clive was living evidence that you could lost almost everything you ever knew about yourself and still be yourself.' * Mail on Sunday *