The Long Hello Audiobook By Cathie Borrie cover art

The Long Hello

Memory, My Mother, and Me

Preview

Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

The Long Hello

By: Cathie Borrie
Narrated by: Jill Tucker, Cathie Borrie
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.95

Buy for $14.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

A powerful, ground-shifting account of caring for a parent with Alzheimer's, about which Maya Angelou exclaimed, "Joy!"

Since Cathie Borrie delivered her keynote performance at the World Alzheimer's Day event sponsored by the Community and Access Programs of the Museum of Modern Art, her self-published manuscript has won rapturous praise from noted writers and Alzheimer's experts alike, from Maya Angelou, Lisa Genova, and Molly Peacock to Dr. Bill Thomas; Jed A. Levine of the Alzheimer's Association, NYC; and Meryl Comer of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer's Initiative. Now it is available to the general public for the first time in a trade edition.

The Long Hello distills the seven years the author spent caring for her mother into a pause-resisting memoir that offers insight into the "altering world of the dementia mind". During that time Borrie recorded brief conversations she had with her mother that revealed the transformations within - and sometimes yielded an almost Zen-like poetry. She includes selections from them in chapters about her experience that are as evocative as diary entries. Her mother was the emotional pillar and sometime breadwinner in a home touched by a birth father's alcoholism, a brother's early death, divorce, and a stepfather's remoteness. In Borrie's spare prose, her mother's story becomes a family's story as well a deeply loving portrait that embraces life.

©2015 Cathie Borrie; First US Edition 2016 (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Aging Parent Physical Illness & Disease Relationships Women Dementia Alzheimer's Disease
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about The Long Hello

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    21
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    16
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

From the heart

A beautiful story of love, loss and survival. So many of our generation have navigated these waters. My own grandmother told us, “ You are such nice people, I wish my own family would come to visit me.”

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Melancholic Story

While some have panned it because of the back and forth and difficulty following, this is a poignant story of a person losing their mother, not just once, but two times. The chaos of the timeline is all too familiar to anyone who has cared for a person with Alzheimer’s. Not just visitors, but spent many hours in a day and over the course of years. What was striking to me is maybe the author is attempting to come to terms with her own life; the guilt, loss of a childhood, her brother, etc. is so telling. A good read but much different than expected.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Eavesdropping

It's a matter of perspective, I realized; but I feel as if I've eavesdropped on a very private conversation with no one in particular. It comes across as a whispered after thought. To painful to be specific, it's like the burning ache of a long tattoo, too specific to be painless.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!