Altered Paths: Narrating Age-Related Memory Loss

Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI), generally, is diagnosed when a person’s memory range is below that of what is expected of people their own age. Yet, though aMCI affects millions of people, the condition has rarely, if ever, been specifically addressed in literary works or examined in literary studies.

This paper explores how qualitative research and critical analysis can be utilised to create a fictional voice for age-related memory loss as well as map a potential future for a character who lacks the ability to create memories. My goal is to animate and offer new directions for the illness narrative as literary fiction through the process of writing my novel-in-progress, which is told from the perspective of a septuagenarian living with aMCI. I will discuss my current research study—undertaken with Professor of Neuropsychology Catherine Loveday and in conjunction with the eldercare charity Age UK—combining these findings with 1) critical analyses of linguistic study via “mind style,” 2) literary studies involving character development without the use of memory, and 3) neuropsychological investigations into how the mind functions with age-related memory loss.
Ultimately, through a discussion of my methods and a reading of my novel-in-progress, I will demonstrate how the creation of a fictional voice for aMCI will offer new narrative possibilities that provide both a literal and metaphorical altered path; one that allows the character to change his relationship with time and prioritises the immediate environs of his experience, shifting from a defunct view of selfhood—i.e. the creation and accumulation of achievements and memories—to a transformed self via an unconventional narrative. By reflexively narrating my methods of creating a fictional voice for the subjective terrain of cognitive impairment, this talk demonstrates how such a voice can challenge representational modes and literary conventions of age-related memory loss.