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Sep 28, 2026
Award-winning journalist Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road, joins journalist Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire, for a conversation about the wrenching search for a cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease — and his deeply moving new book, The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia.
In a small town in Pennsylvania, the youngest child in a family of nine siblings notices something strange after her brothers and sisters have left for college — her still-young mother seemingly falls under a spell, changing into someone she doesn’t recognize: withdrawn, neglectful, uncaring. The siblings soon learn that they are the carriers of a genetic mutation that causes dementia to set in as early as their 40s. The Vanishing Family is their story — unfolding like a heartbreaking thriller, the siblings begin to realize that what happened to their mother is happening to them.
Could this family hold the key to a medical breakthrough? In a masterful blend of intimate family portrait and cutting-edge science, Kolker’s new book explores some of the most profound questions we can ask about the human mind. What makes us who we are? How do families endure this cruel genetic fate? And how do we live fully in the shadow of the uncertainty it unleashes on our lives?
Essential for anyone interested in science, medicine, and the stories that shape our understanding of what it means to be human, this conversation offers an opportunity to hear from a legendary medical journalist and storyteller as he explores one family’s extraordinary journey — and what it reveals about all of our futures in the race to cure dementia.
Hear Kolker reflect on the reporting behind his extraordinary genetic detective story, the ordinary heroism of the family at its center, and the search for hope in the face of one of the defining medical challenges of our time.
“A triumph of reporting and an absolutely compelling exploration of neuroscience and genetics.” — Susan Orlean
“A riveting family saga about sisters and brothers trying to understand who they are.” — Rachel Aviv
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