Praise for Holding the Net

Holding the Net chosen as a 2017 Best Caregiving Book by Caring.com
The author paints a stirring picture of what it’s like to guide and support a parent through old age. With a wisdom that can only be gained by overcoming these challenges, Merriman provides an eye-opening look into the struggles and joys that come along with this responsibility.

Wendy S. Harpham, MD posted a review of Holding the Net on her website Healthy Survivorship. According to Harpham, Holding the Net “paints a detailed picture that stirs your emotions and encourages you think about how you want to handle your own challenges.”

“With wisdom and humility, Merriman draws on personal experience to create a moving, matter-of-fact, deeply eye-opening look at what most of us will eventually face: guiding our parents through old age.”

—Cathi Hanauer, NY Times best-selling novelist and editor of The Bitch in the House and The Bitch is Back

“For those of us who are still engaged in wishful thinking about the end of life, Melanie Merriman’s memoir is a wake-up call and a gentle guide through the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly journey of helping the people we love through the difficult process of aging to a soft landing. She is honest about how hard this work is for loving caregivers as well as for their parents. Read it and be prepared!”

—Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and founder of The Conversation Project

“Holding the Net is an engrossing, tenderly told story of a daughter’s loving care for her mother. Beyond just a good read, these pages hold pearls of practical wisdom that are gifts to any reader who happens to be a parent who is growing older or the child of one.”

—Dr. Ira Byock, palliative care physician, Chief Medical Officer of the Providence Institute for Human Caring, and author of The Four Things That Matter Most and The Best Care Possible

“This is not the story of just one mother and her daughters. It is all of our stories—ones already lived, or ones midstream, or ones about to happen. Read Melanie Merriman’s words for validation, for forgiveness, for guidance, for hope. The tightrope of aging contains all of these, and more. This book will hold your hand on that tightrope.”

—Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most and Morningstar

“Holding the Net should prove both a much-needed comfort and a practical guide to anyone faced with the many challenges of caring for an aging parent. Melanie Merriman lays out her own journey through the last years of her mother’s life in a no-nonsense but affecting fashion that reminds us of both the bounty of fully lived lives and the sacrifices that love requires. Readers will be touched, reassured, guided, and, most importantly, uplifted.”

—Les Standiford, author of Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct & the Rise of Los Angeles

Cassandra McCann posted a pre-publication review of Holding the Net on Goodreads