Canti Notturni

Jim Johnson could be any man in Everytown, America. It happens that he is a 50 year old Dean of Students, a husband and parent of three children. Unfortunately, he is also one of the 5 million American's with Alzheimer's disease. His diagnosis comes very early in his life, when progress of the disease is most swift. This is his first person report, and the reflections of his wife, Deanna.

"September" shares the nuanced transition from caring dean to care-giver dean, and from caring family members -- which include a techie son, college-bound daughter and younger daughter with Down syndrome -- to dedicated team of care-givers. Their syncopated grief and confusion mirror the Dean's own challenges with his parents a generation earlier.

Jim Johnson becomes the increasingly reluctant care recipient as he races against time and disease to capture his family and career memories.

Johnson's wife Deanna joins the long fight as a trained nurse and care-giver-in-conflict, trying to care for the dean, chronicle the best in her husband, and manage her family during his merciless slide.

The Kind of September is authentic and tender, instructive and alarming. Within the tragedy of so many family "speed bumps," as Johnson calls them, the reader will find humor and irony. As he captures the raucous student stories of his past, they bring back the poignant parallels in his own family history. Or so he thinks, as he ... tries to remember.

The Johnson story is a reminder that the unexpected can happen at any time to all of us. If not disease or old age, then life-altering incident.

Is simply caring for each other enough, or is there a formula, an intentional path we might walk to nuance our eventual roles as care-givers? William Donohue's first novel crosses three generations to share one families world of speed bumps to help you decide.