Rose is in her eighties and has dementia, but she's not done with life just yet. Alternately sharp as a tack and spectacularly forgetful, she spends her days roaming the corridors of the aged-care facility, ruminating on the staff and residents and enduring visits from her emotionally distant children and grand-daughters. But when her friend is found dead—after an apparent fall from a window, Rose embarks on an eccentric and deeply personal investigation to discover the truth and—exposes all manner of secrets, even some from her own past.

Rose gropes, intuits and bluffs her way towards the answers she seeks, while increasingly coming to believe that she is in direct physical danger after she witnesses the murder of another resident. The Care Manager and the Head Nurse seem intent on keeping Rose powerless and confused, while her son, who has Power of Attorney over her affairs, appears to have been compromised and corrupted by the Care Manager.

As she perseveres in her quest for access to her lost memories and to regain her mastery of language, Rose comes to understand that in order to solve the mystery and ensure her own safety, she will have to confront the truth about her own and her children's troubled past.

Wickedly funny and genuinely moving, All the Words We Know is a literary crossover of the highest order, a masterclass in voice with an economy of storytelling that's hilarious and poignant.