Turn of Mind is a heartbreaking, claustrophobic, thrilling, poetic descent into the mind of Dr. Jennifer White, a retired orthopedic surgeon suffering from dementia. Her best friend has been killed, and four fingers were surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect, but she herself doesn’t know whether or not she did it. I read this book in one breathless sitting, on a flight home from a business trip, and the time flew.
— Sara, Atlanta
“This is an emotionally intense story of a 64-year-old hand surgeon, Jennifer White, as she experiences the unyielding onslaught of dementia. On any given day she is lucid, catatonic, violent, or very, very sly. Does she feel any remorse for her less-than-stellar parenting of her two children? Did she kill her friend Amanda and amputate her fingers? LaPlante's exceptional skill with words puts readers inside this brilliant woman's mind so that we might experience her anger, frustration, and increasing confusion. This is a remarkable, heart-wrenching, and utterly compelling debut novel.”
— Susan Wasson, Bookworks, Albuquerque, NM
“This is an emotionally intense story of a 64-year-old hand surgeon, Jennifer White, as she experiences the unyielding onslaught of dementia. On any given day she is lucid, catatonic, violent, or very, very sly. Does she feel any remorse for her less-than-stellar parenting of her two children? Did she kill her friend Amanda and amputate her fingers? LaPlante's exceptional skill with words puts readers inside this brilliant woman's mind so that we might experience her anger, frustration, and increasing confusion. This is a remarkable, heart-wrenching, and utterly compelling debut novel.”
— Susan Wasson, Bookworks, Albuquerque, NM
"From the Hardcover edition."