In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Excerpt from Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Readalikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox

Lucky Man

A Memoir

by Michael J. Fox
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Apr 1, 2002, 288 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2003, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this Book

Print Excerpt


But I couldn't recall any such melee. I did recall, however, a moment at the end of the night, when my bodyguard, Dennis, had had to prop me up against the door frame while he fumbled the key into the door of my suite. By the time he'd turned the knob, my weight had shifted onto the door itself; as he flung it open I'd careened into the room, barreling headfirst into the foyer table. But I didn't feel any bumps, so that couldn't have had been it. Any pain in my head was from boozing, not bruising.



IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

Throughout the course of the morning, the twitching would intensify, as would my search for a cause - not just for the rest of that day, but for months to follow. The true answer was elusive, and in fact wouldn't reveal itself for another full year. The trembling was indeed the message, and this is what it was telling me:

The morning - November 13, 1990 - my brain was serving notice: it had initiated a divorce from my mind. Efforts to contest or reconcile would be futile; eighty percent of the process, I would later learn, was already complete. No grounds were given, and the petition was irrevocable. Further, my brain was demanding, and incrementally seizing custody of my body, beginning with the baby: the outermost finger of my left hand.

Ten years later, knowing what I do now, this mind-body divorce strikes me as a serviceable metaphor - though at the time it was a concept well beyond my grasp. I had no idea there were even problems in the relationship - just assumed things were pretty good between the old gray matter and me. This was a false assumption. Unbeknownst to me, things had been deteriorating long before the morning of the pinkie rebellion. But by declaring its dysfunction in such an arresting fashion, my brain now had my mind's full attention.

It would be a year of questions and false answers that would satisfy me for a long time, fueling my denial and forestalling the sort of determined investigation that would ultimately provide the answer. That answer came from a doctor who would inform me that I had a progressive, degenerative, and incurable neurological disorder; one that I may have been living with for as long as a decade before suspecting there might be anything wrong. This doctor would also tell me that I could probably continue acting for "another ten good years," and he would be right about that, almost to the day. What he did not tell me -- what no one could -- is that these last ten years of coming to terms with my disease would turn out to be the best ten years of my life -- not in spite of my illness, but because of it.

I have referred to it in interviews as a gift -- something for which others with this affliction have taken me to task. I was only speaking from my own experience, of course, but I stand partially corrected: if it is a gift, it's the gift that just keeps on taking.

Coping with the relentless assault and the accumulating damage is not easy. Nobody would ever choose to have this visited upon them. Still, this unexpected crisis forced a fundamental life decision: adopt a siege mentality -- or embark upon a journey. Whatever it was - courage? acceptance? wisdom? -- that finally allowed me to go down the second road (after spending a few disastrous years on the first) was unquestionably a gift - and absent this neurophysiological catastrophe, I would never have opened it, or been so profoundly enriched. That's why I consider myself a lucky man.

  • 1
  • 2

Copyright 2002 Michael J. Fox. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher, Hyperion Books.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket
    The MANIAC
    by Benjamin Labatut
    The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is an ambitious work that falls squarely into the category of fiction...
  • Book Jacket: Blood Test
    Blood Test
    by Charles Baxter
    Brock Hobson is a loving single father, a Sunday School teacher, and an upstanding and honest ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

Life is the garment we continually alter, but which never seems to fit.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.