Book Review: "Lucky Man: A Memoir"

It's no secret to anyone who knows me personally that lately, I've been on a huge Michael J. Fox kick. (No, really; I barreled through the entire series of Family Ties in the span of one month. I've been attempting to watch anything he's ever been in.) I more recently found out that he's also an author who's written three books. This is the first of those three.

Lucky Man: A Memoir is not exactly an autobiography, although it does have a lot of the makings of one. How it varies, however, is that it focuses primarily on Michael's journey with Parkinson's disease: how it started, how it progressed, how it affected his life, the extents he'd go to to try and mask his symptoms so nobody would know about it for years, and how he eventually became somewhat of an ambassador for the disease, although hesitant to become its poster child. At the same time, however, it does include a lot of details involving his personal life that don't necessarily have anything to do with the disease either; returning the humanity to Michael that the label of victim almost immediately stripped from him as soon as he went public about his diagnosis.

The book bounces back and forth a lot between earlier days and more modern times; in a way, he's writing two separate timelines in tandem. Although that may sound weird or confusing, it actually works. What makes it work even moreso is that Michael is one of few celebrities who've written a memoir that's written in the same exact style he speaks in. (Davy Jones is one other such example whom I've personally read an autobiography of that encapsulated that quality.) You enter the book almost feeling as though you know him because of this quality.

I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed every last bit of this book and took my time savoring its every last word. I highly recommend it to just about anybody, and I rate it a 5 out of 5 stars!