Downs has captured, in spare but evocative prose, the downhill path of an aging couple that also opened the way for subtle but meaningful expressions of love between father and son. As a portrait of a person with Alzheimer's disease, the situation that Lillian Neel finds herself in, it is unerring. Downs brilliantly but ever so quietly suggests how confusion and memory loss are experienced, how a loved one tries to protect while also feeling shame, and how the possibility of breaking through on a noncognitive level can be transformative once we recognize its power.

I have spent the past 30 years working in the field of gerontology and the humanities. I plan to use this book in teaching and in writing. I highly recommend it to health care practitioners as a way to see beyond the person who often gets dismissed as the "Alzhimer's patient" as if there is nothing else to the person but his or her disease.

As more pulp fiction continues to saturate our American cultural life, it is increasingly delightful to find an author who can show us anew the fine art of the novel. This story and its author find a poignant way to touch the reader with exquisite character, image, and emotional tone. We are carried through the story and leave it with an experience that cannot be summarized - it can only be conveyed through each and every word that Downs lays out. This is the true sign of fine art. A very memorable read.

Robert C.S. Downs is the sort of writer that other writers read to learn how it's done. This book, valuable for all the reasons that other reviewers have noted here, also happens to be the best written new novel I've read in years. I had almost concluded, sadly, that no one was doing this anymore, developing characters so fully human and about whom the reader must have maddeningly mixed feelings. The aged father, Able Neel, is as fully realized a character as any I've encountered, and son Teddy's anger, resentment, pain, and, not incidentally, love for his parents, come through with an emotional potency that is remarkable.The Fifth Season deserves a wide readership. It has much to say, to the casual reader and to any writer looking for a model or for inspiration.