Child of Earth and Starry Heaven

Summary

L. Annette Binder’s Child of Earth and Starry Heaven is a memoir of motherhood, memory and memory loss. It looks to mythology, science, poetry, history, and fiction to find beauty and meaning even as Annette’s mother succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease. Sad and joyous, the book is a meditation on what makes us human.

Kirkus notes that, "The author writes with the probing lyricism of a poet... Readers will admire Binder's refusal of sentimentality, observant eye and determination to grasp answers that seem always on the verge of evaporation. An illuminating and moving meditation on dementia. (Our Verdict: GET IT.)" Foreword Reviews concludes that, “The prose is infused with love, exhibiting the grace Binder found in others and for herself...Despite the book's inevitable ending, there is no sense of tragedy to be found—only kinship.” James Brown, author of Apology to the Young Addict, calls the book "a hauntingly powerful work of the sort only the very best of writers may hope to achieve in a lifetime," while Harvard neuroscientist Daniel Schacter, author of The Seven Sins of Memory, calls it "an essential book that both moves and informs.”