AN INTIMATE GLIMPSE INTO FOX'S LIFE
Actor's spirit shines through in heartfelt memoir about living with Parkinson's
Michael J. Fox has long been open about his experience living with Parkinson's disease.
The celebrated Hollywood actor — and Burnaby Central Secondary School alumnus — has built unprecedented awareness around the progressive nervous system disorder since going public with his ailment in 1998 (Fox was diagnosed in 1991 at age 29).
And Fox dives deeper into the subject, sharing his recent struggles and successes on an even more personal level in his latest book No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality.
Throughout the hardcover release, the 59-year-old actor shares a stream of short anecdotes stemming from his experience with the disorder. Always heartfelt and often heart-wrenching, Fox faces realities such as the marked reduction of mobility — “To me, movement always represented freedom” — the loss of an ongoing string of pastimes that he had previously loved, and the reality of working with reduced emotive output.
Each exploration is done with honesty and open fragility. “Gradually, with the effects of Parkinson's, my face began retreating to a passive, almost frozen disposition. It was blank, and I was hardpressed to enliven it in any way that didn't seem artificial.
“Acting is what I do, and I needed to find a new way to do it,” he wrote of the new-found approach to acting while working later in his career on shows such as Spin City.
Fans of Fox will likely be familiar with his candid approach — and trademark humour — shared in the pages of his three previous books: Lucky Man: A Memoir from 2002; Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist from 2009; and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned from 2010.
Those who know Fox from little more than his standout acting roles including Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties, Marty Mcfly in the Back to the Future films and Louis Canning on The Good Wife, will undoubtedly be drawn in by the actor's easy writing style and straightforward approach to sharing his life and struggles with Parkinson's disease.
A key turning point in the book, one which sees Fox's optimism waver, or “be put on trial,” as he describes it, centres around the surgery he underwent for a tumour on his spinal cord in 2018. Fox had to learn to walk again after the tumour was removed.
Perhaps most striking is the insight into his spirit that the book conveys. Fox has been faced with life-altering afflictions — alcohol abuse, Parkinson's disease, a tumour — and yet he continues to emphasize the positive and face life with a will to keep going.
This comes through in the pages of his latest book, along with several self-deprecating retellings of moments when he wasn't at his best, or on his best behaviour.
“Time will reveal how idiotic and short-sighted this was,” Fox writes of his initial resistance to rules while in rehab post-surgery at Johns Hopkins.
The book also reads like a loving thank you to his family, primarily his wife of more than 30 years Tracy Pollan, who has stuck by Fox throughout his years of successes, health issues, retirement, return to work, and most recently, retirement again.
“Really, it comes down to gratitude,” Fox writes. “I am grateful for all of it ... because they're real.”