Name: An Evening with Robert Kolker in conversation with Marc Agronin
Start: 2026-10-01T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-10-01
Location: Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ

An Evening with Robert Kolker in conversation with Marc Agronin

Books & Books | Bookstore & CaféWe’re your independent, locally owned bookstore with four locations in South Florida – plus stores at Miami International Airport and Key West, FL. We’re a community of writers and readers hosting free and ticketed events.Bookstores:Coral Gables: 305-442-4408Bal Harbour Shops: 305-864-4241Coconut Grove: 305-477-0866Key West: 305-320-0208Café:Coral Gables: 305-448-9599

Books & Books

Join us for an evening with author Robert Kolker for the release of his new non-fiction book, THE VANISHING FAMILY.

Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ

🎟️ Please note: Tickets are REQUIRED. Ticket options include:2 Guests + 1 Book Ticket: Each ticket admits two (2) guests into the venue and includes one (1) copy of The Vanishing Family ($35 + tax). Books will be handed out upon entry.1 Guest + 1 Book Ticket: Each ticket admits one (1) guest into the venue and includes one (1) copy of The Vanishing Family ($35 + tax). Books will be handed out upon entry.(Limited Quantity) Free Admission: Each ticket admits one (1) guest into the venue, but does not includes a copy of The Vanishing Family.Additional books will be available for sale at the event. Can't make the event? <a href="https://shop.booksandbooks.com/book/9780385551038" title="https://shop.booksandbooks.com/book/9780385551038" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Buy your copy here</a>.

<h4>About The Book</h4>In the idyllic American town of Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, there lived a family with nine siblings, the youngest a girl named Barb. As the older children headed off to college and started their lives, only Barb was home to see their beautiful, still-young mother fall under a gothic spell, changing into someone she didn’t recognize: withdrawn, neglectful, uncaring. Thus begins The Vanishing Family, journalist Robert Kolker’s superb follow-up to Hidden Valley Road (“Deeply compassionate and chilling,” wrote The Washington Post). This family, we learn, has a genetic mutation that causes dementia, but with an especially cruel twist. As early as their forties, formerly loving parents and hard-driving executives will lose their jobs, have affairs, take up drinking—shed all inhibitions and sense of responsibility—and become people their families hardly know. Their former personalities seem to vanish—and there is a fifty-fifty chance that it will happen to their children, too. The Vanishing Family unfolds like a heartbreaking thriller as the siblings begin to realize that what happened to their mother is happening to them: first one, then two, three, four, and more begin to change. Sue, in search of a calling, finds her place in caring for the others. Barb sets out to find a cure. Alongside their story, Kolker weaves in the dramatic scientific fight against dementia; after decades of blind alleys, this this family’s rare form of FTD (frontotemporal dementia) might lead to a breakthrough in the prevention and treatment of all dementia—including the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease. Moving, intimate, unexpectedly hopeful and redemptive, The Vanishing Family is an enthralling narrative about one family’s fate, and a medical detective story that speaks to all of us who fear losing ourselves at the end.

<h4>About The Author</h4>ROBERT KOLKER is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Hidden Valley Road, named an Oprah’s Book Club Pick, a New York Times Book Review Top 10 book of the year, a GQ Best Book of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century, and a Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century. His first book was Lost Girls, named a New York Times Notable Book and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2013.

<h4>About The Moderator</h4>Marc E. Agronin, MD is a nationally known author, speaker and expert on aging and age-related mental health issues, with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease. He is a board-certified adult and geriatric psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer of the Frank C. and Lynn Scaduto MIND Institute at MiamiJewish Health, one of Florida’s official memory disorder centers and provider of age-related care, where he has worked since 1999. He the author of over ten books and hundreds of articles on aging and mental health, including the acclaimed books "The End of Old Age: Living a Longer,More Purposeful Life" (2018), "How We Age: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Growing Old" 2011), and "Therapy with Older Clients: Key Strategies for Success" (2010). He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. A graduate of Harvard University, summa cum laude, and the Yale School of Medicine, he completed his residency training in adult psychiatry at Harvard University’s McLean Hospital and a geriatric psychiatry fellowship at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center.Dr. Agronin is past president and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP), and was their 2008 recipient of the "Clinician of the Year" award. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.Dr. Agronin lectures around the country on several dynamic and hope-inspiring topics, with a focus on the strengths we gain from aging. He writes regularly on age-related topics and Alzheimer’s disease for the Wall Street Journal, and has also written for the New York Times.

An Evening with Robert Kolker in conversation with Marc Agronin

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An Evening with Robert Kolker in conversation with Marc Agronin

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