No Time Like the Future
An Optimist Considers Mortality
Book - 2020
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A moving account of resilience, hope, fear and mortality, and how these things resonate in our lives, by actor and advocate Michael J. Fox.
The entire world knows Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, the teenage sidekick of Doc Brown in Back to the Future ; as Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties ; as Mike Flaherty in Spin City ; and through numerous other movie roles and guest appearances on shows such as The Good Wife and Curb Your Enthusiasm . Diagnosed at age 29, Michael is equally engaged in Parkinson's advocacy work, raising global awareness of the disease and helping find a cure through The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, the world's leading non-profit funder of PD science. His two previous bestselling memoirs, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up , dealt with how he came to terms with the illness, all the while exhibiting his iconic optimism. His new memoir reassesses this outlook, as events in the past decade presented additional challenges.
In No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael shares personal stories and observations about illness and health, aging, the strength of family and friends, and how our perceptions about time affect the way we approach mortality. Thoughtful and moving, but with Fox's trademark sense of humor, his book provides a vehicle for reflection about our lives, our loves, and our losses.
Running through the narrative is the drama of the medical madness Fox recently experienced, that included his daily negotiations with the Parkinson's disease he's had since 1991, and a spinal cord issue that necessitated immediate surgery. His challenge to learn how to walk again, only to suffer a devastating fall, nearly caused him to ditch his trademark optimism and "get out of the lemonade business altogether."
Does he make it all of the way back? Read the book.
- Details
- Full Record
- Additional Info
Searching for more content…
Searching for more content…
Opinion
From the critics
Community Activity
Comment
Add a CommentTold with humor and pathos, beloved actor Michael J. Fox's third memoir focuses on his experiences in midlife as someone who has Parkinson's Disease, with a few other unpleasant health surprises along the way. Candidly he shares the day-to-day experiences of what his life has been like; his loving family surrounding him but unable to protect him when hubris and circumstances wreak their havoc. Fox is a brave man who has kept his sense of humor through some truly horrific experiences. Whatever he faces, he faces with courage.
Excellent and frank. Full of anecdotes, personal without being self-pitying or self-congratulatory. Highly recommend this.
After reading “No Time,” I endeavor to read more Michael J. Fox. With clear delineations, the chapters are well constructed—the author doesn’t divulge his entire life, and what he chooses to say has worth and value.
-
As non-fiction, NT is a valuable foray into Parkinson’s—which, if I recall, MJF refers to as “movement disorder.” I was surprised to learn PK is more likely degenerative than lethal.
-
Digesting the author’s take on Parkinson’s made me happy. To me, two quotes capture his perspective:
-
(1) “I’m beginning to see that . . . fear’s opposite, can be expressed as gratitude . . . ,” and
(2) “The mistake I make at times is to assume that my kids are looking at what I can’t do, and not at what I can do. They see through the disease, and they see their dad.” Basically, he expected to be viewed through a lens of ableism, and his children proved that wrong.
-
My take is that the author’s journey taught him to view Parkinson’s is more a unifying rather than a divisive human condition.
-
I have a proclivity for Canadian content and especially for Canadian authors. On that note, EPL should procure more Canadian than any other content.
-
As a final note, there were some incongruities in vocabulary. I sometimes wondered if random words were searched in a Thesaurus and replaced with a more complex synonym. There is a possibility that Im wrong, and MJF is simply an avid reader with an vocabulary to match. But, when that happens, the complexity of each clause in a sentence normally flows like interlocked pieces of a puzzle. And I don’t see that here.
Found in the AARP magazine
Why are no holds available on this book!? How do we find out when we can put it on hold!? Thank you for sharing this information when you can.
Marilyn Neher
Canadian example of courage.