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It's Not Yet Dark: A Memoir
by Simon Fitzmaurice
Published: 2017-08-01
Hardcover : 176 pages
Hardcover : 176 pages
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“A fiercely eloquent testament to making the most out of every moment we're given.”
—People, Book of the Week
A luminous memoir in the tradition of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and a #1 bestseller upon its initial release in Ireland, a young filmmaker gives us “a story of ...
—People, Book of the Week
A luminous memoir in the tradition of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and a #1 bestseller upon its initial release in Ireland, a young filmmaker gives us “a story of ...
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Introduction
“A fiercely eloquent testament to making the most out of every moment we're given.”
—People, Book of the Week
A luminous memoir in the tradition of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and a #1 bestseller upon its initial release in Ireland, a young filmmaker gives us “a story of courage, of heart, of coming back for more, of love and struggle and the power of both” (Joseph O'Connor).
In 2008, Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was given four years to live. In 2010, in a state of lung-function collapse, Simon knew with crystal clarity that now was not his time to die. Against all prevailing medical opinion, he chose to ventilate in order to stay alive.
In It’s Not Yet Dark, the young filmmaker, a husband and father of five small children, draws us deeply into his inner world. Told in simply expressed and beautifully stark prose, it is an astonishing journey into a life that, though brutally compromised, is lived more fully than most, revealing at its core the potent power love has to carry us through the days.
Written using an eye-gaze computer, It's Not Yet Dark is an unforgettable book about relationships and family, about what connects and separates us as people, and, ultimately, about what it means to be alive.
—People, Book of the Week
A luminous memoir in the tradition of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and a #1 bestseller upon its initial release in Ireland, a young filmmaker gives us “a story of courage, of heart, of coming back for more, of love and struggle and the power of both” (Joseph O'Connor).
In 2008, Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was given four years to live. In 2010, in a state of lung-function collapse, Simon knew with crystal clarity that now was not his time to die. Against all prevailing medical opinion, he chose to ventilate in order to stay alive.
In It’s Not Yet Dark, the young filmmaker, a husband and father of five small children, draws us deeply into his inner world. Told in simply expressed and beautifully stark prose, it is an astonishing journey into a life that, though brutally compromised, is lived more fully than most, revealing at its core the potent power love has to carry us through the days.
Written using an eye-gaze computer, It's Not Yet Dark is an unforgettable book about relationships and family, about what connects and separates us as people, and, ultimately, about what it means to be alive.
Excerpt
The braveI am a stranger. A different breed. I move among you but am so different that to pretend I am the same only causes me pain. And yet I am the same, in as many ways as I am different. I am a stranger.
I observe your meaning on television, through song and writing. I was once like you. But I often feel distant from you.
My meaning has faces, names. Totems. The words we utter. Every breath of us is meaning.
{
Everyone notices but no one sees.
On the streets, in the crowds, no one sees.
I was once invisible. I moved among you, invisible in my disguise. Now I am difference made manifest. I cannot hide. I move with a force field that makes you avert your eyes. Only children see me. You gather them together when I draw near but they do not look away. You cross the street from me but your children do not look away. They are still looking for the definition of man. ... view entire excerpt...
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