Books on Thursday

This week was a nonfiction week for me. One was sad but highly educational and informative and the second one was an exceptional recommendation from Kat. 

 

After reading Robert Kolker's Hidden Valley Road, I was eager to pick up The Vanishing Family. His previous exploration of a family devastated by inherited schizophrenia was both compassionate and fascinating, so a book about another family confronting a devastating genetic legacy immediately caught my attention.

This time Kolker turns his focus to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), following a Pennsylvania family over decades as sibling after sibling faces the possibility and the reality of inheriting a rare genetic mutation. What makes the story so heartbreaking is that the disease often strikes people in the prime of their lives, fundamentally altering their personalities long before their memories disappear. Watching family members struggle to understand what is happening, while living under the constant shadow of a 50/50 chance of developing the disease themselves, creates an almost unbearable sense of tension.

Kolker has a remarkable gift for explaining complicated medical research without losing sight of the people at the center of the story. The science is fascinating, but it never overshadows the emotional weight of the family's experience. Their resilience, grief, disagreements, and determination to contribute to research make them feel like people you come to know rather than simply subjects of a case study.

While the book is deeply moving, I occasionally found myself wishing for a slightly tighter narrative. The scientific discoveries and the many family members can sometimes make the story feel repetitive, especially in the middle sections. Even so, Kolker's empathy for his subjects and his skill as a storyteller kept me engaged throughout.

This is an engrossing blend of medical mystery, family history, and human resilience. Like Hidden Valley Road, it reminds us that behind every scientific breakthrough are real people whose willingness to share their stories may ultimately change countless lives.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be publsihed on September 29, 2026.

On Witness and Respair is a deeply moving collection of essays that feels both intimate and expansive. Jesmyn Ward writes about family, grief, motherhood, race, literature, and the experience of being a writer with the same lyrical intensity that makes her fiction so powerful. There’s a real sense throughout that she is trying to understand how we carry the people and experiences that have shaped us, and how we keep going after loss.

The essays about literature were some of my favorites, particularly Ward’s reflections on Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and Octavia Butler. I loved seeing how these writers became part of her intellectual and emotional landscape, and how she connects their work to her own life and writing. Her thoughts on what fiction can do and why stories matter also made this feel like a fascinating glimpse into her creative mind.

The titular essay, “On Witness and Respair,” is especially heartbreaking. Ward writes about the sudden death of her partner with tremendous honesty and restraint, capturing both the enormity of grief and the strange, disorienting experience of trying to live alongside it. The book’s idea of “respair”, hope that persists despite everything, is what ultimately stayed with me.

I’ve seen other reviewers mention that they found the essays repetitive, but I didn’t experience them that way. There are certainly recurring themes and ideas, but I appreciated that repetition as part of the collection’s coherence. Ward keeps circling back to family, literature, loss, and resilience from different angles, and each return felt like another layer rather than simply saying the same thing again.

Not every essay resonated with me equally, which is why I landed at four stars rather than five, but there is so much beauty and thoughtfulness here. Ward’s prose is as haunting and gorgeous as ever, and this collection left me thinking about the relationship between grief and hope, and about the stories we inherit and the ones we choose to tell. Thanks for the recommendation, Kat! 

Now I'd like to know what you are reading!