Buffalo Lockjaw, by Greg Ames

This book is so depressing. James, a 28-year-old "sensitive artist" type, comes home to Buffalo for Thanksgiving and to possibly kill his mother. That sounds pretty bad until you consider that his mother, once a brilliant, vivacious nurse, is a 56-year-old victim of Alzheimer's. She was an advocate of assisted suicide and once confided to her son that she wanted to kill herself before the disease made her incapable of doing so, but he talked her out of it. Now he feels that it's his responsibility to end her suffering.

The business with his mother is bad enough, but he just sleepwalks through life, hanging out with his friends from high school who are living pathetic, faux-Bohemian (faux-hemian?) lives. James sees this now; he describes these people as artists who create no art and musicians who never play anywhere. Their lives just make me sad. I think the book is well-written, and I don't dislike James. He's self-aware enough to know he's a loser (as he says on p. 263, "I can't figure out why no single women are talking to me: I'm a balding twenty-eight-year-old making archaic political references to myself. I'm a catch"), and the scenes with his mother are touching. I don't know...the book just makes me feel bad. I'm going to finish it, but it's really not my cup of tea.

I do have to add this quotation for my sister-in-law, who I think will appreciate it:

"I understand that this is heroism. How can it be anything else? No matador in the world shows that much courage. Give me a good RN over a fireman or police officer any day. Every day a nurse sees truths that would crush a weaker person. And a good nurse resists the urge to lie, cheat, and steal her way out of reality. She just stands in the ring and fights" (Ames 276).