Short description
The remarkable memoir of film star Michael J. Fox and his first ten years living with Parkinson's Disease. Diagnosed in 1991, Michael eventually lost his balance, his grace, his spontaneity, and the ability to read the morning newspaper. Even so, he realizes that, in fact, he is a lucky man.
Review
This is no ordinary celebrity memoir. Michael J Fox is a household name in the United States after his meteoric rise to fame in film and TV. But this story starts in dramatic fashion with his discovery aged 30, that his little finger was trembling and twitching. It took a full year before he could accept that he had Parkinson's Disease, a progressive, degenerative and incurable neurological disorder. Coping with this 'relentless assault and accumulating damage' and concealing it as long as possible while he continued his movie and TV career led to alcoholic despair and traumatic marital relations. He felt his 'life was in flames', but he kept his condition private for seven years. Reluctantly he reached out for help from a Jungian analyst, who gave him the understanding of himself that he needed. The story is told in an easy, colloquial style, and chapters about his childhood, his determination to be an actor and his early struggles are skilfully interlaced with the later ones about the development of the disease - which he has called a 'profoundly enriching gift'. He now considers himself a lucky man. He describes what he calls the 'on-off phenomenon' - the disease reduces him to a prisoner in his own body until the medication kicks in, bringing full functioning, but the strain of 'timing' this with the demands of his acting life led to his coming out of the closet to share his experience with Parkinson's. He had little idea what a big news story it would be, and what an enormous surge of concern and sympathy he would receive. Unknowingly, he had sparked a national conversation about PD, and hundreds of fellow sufferers felt emboldened to share their fears without being stigmatized. Now Fox plays a very valuable part in the Parkinson's Action Network (PAN) and has also founded the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson Research. This is an honest, engrossing and uplifting read. (Kirkus UK)