Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, by Michael J. Fox (HC, 2009, $2.50)
"The last ten years, which is really the stuff of this book, began with such a loss: my retirement from Spin City. I found myself struggling with a strange new dynamic, the shifting of public and private personas. I had been Mike the actor, then Mike the actor with PD. Now was I just Mike with PD? Parkinson's had consumed my career, and in a sense, had become my career. But where did all of this leave me? I had to build a new life when I was already pretty happy with the old one."
I loved him in Family Ties. I loved him in Back to the Future. Then I lost track of him until his diagnosis with PD, which did not mean as much to me until my dad was diagnosed with it too. Of course Dad was a lot older, and not famous, except to his family and friends, but still... Dad was somehow lucky to find peace, and a sense of humor, in his latter days. But he was already in his late 70s when he was diagnosed. How does someone as young as Michael J. Fox cope with these losses? Some human beings just amaze me, and Michael is one of them.
Look for this in the bio. section.
