Author Wayne Hoffman regales us with two concurrent non-fiction stories. His search to learn the identity of the person who murdered his great-grandmother as she lay sleeping in her bed, with an infant child at her side, occurred at the same time that his mother, Susan, was having increasing problems with her memory as Alzheimer’s progressively took a worsening toll.
The juxtaposition of the two tales helped the pacing of this book. At such points when either of the stories, unrelieved, might seem too depressing, Hoffman turned to the other, often leavening his account with his mother’s trademark humor.
The manner of his great-grandmother’s murder is documented in the newspapers of Winnipeg, Canada, where the family lived in the early 20th century. The case was headline material, especially because the police were unable to make a case against any of the immediate suspects. Over the years, a mutant version of the story had somehow become family lore. As Hoffman originally heard his mother tell it, his great-grandmother Sarah had been sitting on the porch outside, nursing her baby, when she was killed by a bullet fired by a drive-by shooter. Really? thought Hoffman. His great-grandmother was nursing a baby outside during a Canadian winter? That made no sense at all.
Hoffman is both an author and a journalist, currently serving as an editor for the Jewish-focused Tablet magazine. In the case of the murdered great-grandmother, he knew how to track down a story; in the case of his deteriorating mother, he knew how to keep track of her steady decline. He kept prodigious notes on both.
Genealogists and detective story fans will enjoy his account of his widening search for clues to his great-grandmother’s century-old murder. He read all the newspaper accounts and official documents; walked through the neighborhood where it happened; visited her gravesite; interviewed relatives about what they might have heard about the case; and followed every line of inquiry he could think of. Eventually, he came to a conclusion.
The well-documented story of his mother’s decline will be of interest to the families of other Alzheimer’s sufferers, if only for comparison purposes. The disease didn’t rob his mother of memory all at once; over time, it insidiously deprived Susan of more and more of that memory until virtually nothing was left but confusion and inchoate rage.
For Hoffman, establishing the identity of his great-grandmother’s killer was more than just a reportorial quest. He and his mother had talked often about the case, and as she faded away, it was a link he did not wish to relinquish.
The End of Her: Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder by Wayne Hoffman; Heliotrope Books (c) 2022; ISBN 9781942-762904; 301 pages, $18.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World