No self-pity here!

In 1998 Michael J Fox told the world he had Parkinson’s Disease. It came as a shock to almost everyone, yet Fox had had the disease since 1990, and had managed to keep it hidden all that time, not just from his public but from many of those he worked with.

Parkinson’s is most often seen amongst older people, but Fox was around 30 when he first noticed symptoms. He was diagnosed as having a much rarer form of the disease known as Young Onset Parkinson’s, which affects people under the age of 40. Since coming ‘out of the closet’ (his words) about the disease, he has become an advocate for the people suffering from it. This younger group are often disadvantaged economically and socially because of its effects.

In this book, Fox and Parkinson’s take equal roles. In spite of its title, this isn’t just a book about Fox’s successes (although they are spoken of), but more about his realisation that the celebrity bubble he found himself in wasn’t the real world. He counts himself lucky that Parkinson’s brought not only suffering for him but a greater sense of reality.

Fox had become heavily addicted to alcohol in his early celebrity years, and used it firstly as a way of dealing with the insecurities of his inner life, and later with the difficulties of an increasingly debilitating disease. One day he hit rock bottom in his addiction, and began to climb up again. In the ensuing years he went through patches of depression, but was greatly helped by a no-nonsense therapist.

Unlike many celebrity books, this one is written by the star himself, rather than a ghost writer. Fox’s sense of humour continually surfaces, but far more than that, he focuses on what he has learnt about life through suffering. He is honest about his journey, an honesty perhaps gained partly as a result of being raised in a down-to-earth Canadian family, and partly through having a wife who has stood by him.

Early in the book Fox writes: “I am no longer the person described in the first few pages [of the book], and I am forever grateful for that. I would never want to go back to that life – a sheltered, narrow existence fueled by fear and made livable by insulation, isolation, and self-indulgence. It was a life lived in a bubble – but bubbles, being the most fragile constructions, are easily destroyed.”

This has to be one of the least self-centred celebrity bios of recent years, and one of the most readable.