The title of this book, ZANDRA: My Daughter, Diabetes, and Lessons in Love, says it all. When Janet Hatch takes a clearly sick eleven-year-old Alexandra, nicknamed “Zandra,” to the hospital thinking she is showing signs of type I diabetes, her amateur diagnosis is confirmed. In one moment, the entire family–Hatch, her husband Gord, their other children Olivia, Joseph, and Liam–is upended. Hatch reviews Zandra’s childhood and her own, as well as her two marriages, amid this chronicle of the fight to keep a sick girl alive.
The heart of the book, though, is Zandra herself–her spirit, her humor, her grit. Kids, of course, want to blend in with their peers, not stand out. Attention is their hemlock, pity their kryptonite. With diabetes, however, this isn’t possible. Lunches must be pre-made. Insulin pens must be carried. Medic-alert bracelets must be worn. Zandra was monitored at school, at home, at a friend’s house–everywhere, lest she slip into a coma and need reviving. Hatch dutifully records these details, then pivots to stories of Zandra playing hockey, Zandra playing soccer, Zandra riding horses. Zandra, in other words, refusing to be beaten.
I wrote “dutifully” a minute ago because that is how this memoir feels: like a case study. The facts are there, but Hatch rarely animates them into something more. Consider this passage: “By the time I got home, [Hatch’s husband] had arrived from work. I told him about my fears, about the thirst and her symptoms, and how anxious I was. He reassured me that I was likely making more of things than I needed to.” How much richer this passage would be as a scene, with dialogue and character development. Same with this line: “In a house where my parents struggled with mental illness and addiction, the conditions grew toxic with every passing year.” Hatch fills in some details but writes more about her childhood pets, cats named Alphie and Percy, than these two people whose histories seem crucial to understanding her quest to control the uncontrollable. Nevertheless, Zandra is a well-told tale, uplifting and informative. Readers will never look at a diabetic the same way again.
ZANDRA: My Daughter, Diabetes, and Lessons in Love, a memoir of a mother’s all-out fight to save her daughter from type I diabetes, hits most of the right notes as it inspires and informs.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader