Always Looking Up By Michael J Fox

As a child born in the 1980’s I spent a lot of time watching Michael J Fox on the big and small screen. The epic trilogy that is Back to the Future was a family favourite and the fact that Michael J Fox was Canadian made him all the more likable. I think it was the feeling of familiarity that made the announcement of Fox’s diagnoses with Parkinson’s hit so close to home.  Since his diagnoses I have always kept an eye out for information about his prognosis and his work in the community. Needless to say it did not take much encouragement for me to pick up his book Always Looking Up from my nearest book store. Now I don’t want you to think that it was only my admiration for Fox that compelled me to read this book because there was more to it then that; the title intrigued me right away. I wanted to be inspired and even though I hoped that Fox was not going to fill 200 odd pages with the power of positive thinking a la The Secret I was hoping for a heart wrenching story about survival. He did not disappoint.

Always Looking Up or as also described on the inside cover as The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist is broken into four parts; work, politics, faith, and family. The titles of these sections are pretty self explanatory and Fox does a great job of telling his story within the confines of each. One of the things that I loved about this book was that it wasn’t a play by play of Fox’s life. Instead he told stories that were relevant and tied them together with his message of survival.

I found the hardest section to get through yet the most educational was the one that concentrated on politics. Being Canadian the American system of government baffles me no matter how many American history courses I take. Of course when discussing the battle to cure Parkinson’s politics is something that can’t be ignored and after reading this book I can appreciate the battle that has been and continues to be fought by so many individuals and groups for stem cell research.There were moments of outrage and moments of celebration along the way and I can’t wait to see more progress and they battle on.

My favourite sections and the ones that touched me the most were faith and family. In the section on faith Fox discusses his struggle with a true sense of religion which is something I think about all the time. In the same section he tells us about the death of his sister with such candid you truly feel the raw emotion. When discussing family Fox talks about road trips, parenthood, and the event that changed so much September 11^th 2001.

The topics he picked were easily accessible to me and made reading a book about someone else’s life not so foreign. Fox has such an honest way of telling his story that really endears to the reader Back to the Future fan or not.