Brain in a Jar: A Daughter's Journey through Her Father's Memory - Nancy Stearns Bercaw

With an Introduction by Former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey & Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

Publication Date: April 2, 2013
Clothbound, 208 pages
ISBN: 978-1-937968-05-2

“Promise me something, Gal,” he said.
“Anything,” I answered.
“Swear that you will put a gun to my head if I wind up like my father.”

Nancy Stearns Bercaw crossed her fingers the day she promised to kill her father. Instead she promised herself to one day tell his story, and in this unflinchingly honest memoir she recounts her life with Dr. Beauregard Lee Bercaw, or “Beau,” who became a neurologist in response to watching his own father deteriorate and die with Alzheimer’s. For many years Beau kept an autopsied brain in a jar on the desk in his office as a constant reminder of the struggle that he waged against the disease first with his patients, and ultimately for himself as he succumbed to its effects. This is also the story of the author’s own struggle to establish her identity and to navigate the treacherous and ever-changing emotional terrain of her relationship with her father, as she literally traveled the world in her quest to make sense of both of their lives.

It would be reason enough to read this book as a gripping account of a family dealing with a tragic disease that continues to ravage the lives of countless victims and their survivors alike. But to say that this is an important book on a crucial subject is to understate its merits. For in a larger sense, this book is not about Alzheimer’s, but rather the more universal subject of family, and how this one family and this one daughter in particular managed to live in the deep shadow of Beau’s obsession.

Surprisingly, given these dark themes, this is often a very funny book, tragicomic in the manner of real life that fiction can never equal. Beau is such a vivid, complex and often infuriating character that if you were to encounter him in a novel you might dismiss him as too unlikely to be real; while the author’s own travels and adventures can seem almost too much to have been crammed into a single, still very much ongoing life.

It is a gift that such a talented and engaging writer should have lived – or perhaps better, survived – such an incredible life, and that she has chosen to make her memoir her mission and to share it with us. This is a rollicking roller-coaster of a read, and it ends in the best possible way, filled with life and hope.

“Brain in a Jar is an American Gothic tale of love, grief, genetics, 0bsession, adventure, fear, and courage. The Bercaws might break your heart, but they’ll also remind you why Alzheimer’s disease must take center stage in politics, medicine, and art.”

Bob Kerrey and Newt Gingrich, from the Introduction

"This is a wonderful, powerful memoir of a father by his daughter, at once heartfelt and artful, very moving and very honest, very well written and beautifully constructed. A classic of its kind."

William Boyd, author eleven novels including A Good Man in Africa, Brazzaville Beach, Any Human Heart and Waiting for Sunrise.

“My friend, classmate and colleague, neurologist Beauregard Bercaw MD, watched his father deteriorate with Alzheimer’s disease and thus knew what might be in store for him. Whereas the stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, ‘Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow,’ this knowledge about his father’s demise helped motivate Beau to spend his life helping other people with neurological diseases, and when he developed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s himself he did not succumb without a valiant battle. This wonderful book written by his daughter describes her relationship with her adoring father, his work as a neurologist, and his fight with this terrible disease. When we reach our eighties, fifty percent of us will have this or another dementing disease, and this book will help open peoples’ eyes so that we can prepare and find a means of ending this terrible plague.”

Kenneth M. Heilman MD, FAAN
The James E. Rooks Jr. Distinguished Professor
Department of Neurology,
University of Florida College of Medicine

Born in the Philippines, Nancy Stearns Bercaw has since lived in Kenya, Korea, Singapore, London, Louisiana, Arizona, Florida, Virginia, New York, Quebec and Abu Dhabi, and today makes her home with her son David and husband Allan Nicholls in Burlington, Vermont. She has written extensively on Alzheimer’s disease for a wide variety of publications, and speaks frequently on issues of Alzheimer’s and identity. Her work as a journalist has appeared around the world from the Korea Herald to the New York Times, and as a contributor to Seven Days, Vermont’s alternative news weekly. She was also a contributor to Cradle Will Rock: The Movie and the Moment (HarperCollins, 1999). A national championship swimmer, she was inducted into the University of South Florida’s inaugural athletic Hall of Fame in 2009. Brain in a Jar was her first book, and more recently she is also the author of Dryland: One Woman's Swim to Sobriety.