by Scott Turow
For technical expertise about firearms, I went to the ultimate informed source, my former trial partner, and blood brother for life, Jeremy Margolis, Commander of the World Police. Two friends in the FBI, Kevin Deery of Charlotte, N.C., and Gayle H. Jacobs of the Los Angeles Division, helped with details of Bureau life.
I would also like to thank Al Smith, a Mercedes salesman in Northbrook, Illinois, who continued providing information to me about the 1993 Mercedes S-class sedans, long after it became clear I was never going to buy one.
Finally, I owe my greatest debt to the community of persons afflicted with and concerned about ALS. The cruelty of this disease cannot be overstated, but the intense support that PALS, their families, their doctors, and other caregivers provide to one another is inspirational. An ALS patient, Doug Jacobson, maintains a remarkably informative Web site (which I reached through www.phoenix.net/~jacobson) where I began my research. Patients, physicians, nurses, family members, speech pathologists, and social workers were extraordinarily frank in responding to my inquiries, no matter how ill informed or prying my questions were. Three neurological experts answered repeated queries and directed me to resource material: Jerry Belsh, M.D., Director of the Neuromuscular and ALS Center at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey; Professor Lanny J. Haverkamp, Ph.D., of the Department of Neurology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; and Lewis Rowland, M.D., of the Neurological Institute of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Lisa Krivickas, M.D., daughter of an ALS patient and a member of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, and Harvard Medical School; Simon Whitney, M.D., of Stanford University; and Matti Jokelainen, M.D., of Central Hospital Lahti, Finland, also provided generous responses to questions.
Two speech pathologists, Kristi Peak-Oliveira of Children’s Hospital in Boston and Iris Fishman, Executive Director of CINI (Communication Independence for the Neurologically Impaired), helped me learn about voice augmentation devices. If I have incorrectly attributed later innovations to 1993, that is the result of a novelist’s liberties and not any misinformation from them.
Three professionals with experience in nursing those with ALS—Peary Brown, R.N., of Jonesboro, Maine; Meraida Polak, R.N., Neuromuscular Nurse Clinician at the Department of Neurology at Emory University; and Ovid Jones—shared poignant reflections.
Alisa Brownlee of the ALS Association’s Greater Philadelphia Chapter and Claire Owen, Patient Service Coordinator of Les Turner ALS Foundation near Chicago, both helped guide me to sources of information about the disease.
Nothing, however, was more moving to me or of greater importance than the communications I received from those who live with ALS. Family members—Kathy Arnette of Fenton, Missouri; Linda Saran of Lake Zurich, Illinois; and Sherry Stampler of Weston, Florida—offered loving and unflinching accounts of the daily accommodations ALS requires. Those afflicted simply broke my heart with the courage, honesty, and eloquence of their responses. Of them all—Martin Blank, now deceased, of Mundelein, Illinois; Arturo Bolivar of San Juan, Puerto Rico; Jim Compton of Bethany, Oklahoma; Tom Ellestad of Santa Rosa, California; Ted Heine of Waverly, Iowa; David Jayne of Circle Rex, Georgia; Eugene Schlebecker of Indianapolis; Philip E. Simmons of Center Sandwich, New Hampshire; and Judy Wilson of Stamford, Connecticut—I will remain forever in awe. That is doubly so of my faithful correspondent Dale S. O’Reilly of Philadelphia, an articulate advocate and a spirited example of the vitality, wit, and imagination that survive this disease.
I have had such openhearted support and encouragement from those affected by ALS that it would sadden me enormously if any part of this novel, especially its conclusion, were regarded as disrespectful of them. More than 90 percent of end-stage ALS patients choose not to accept ventilation, but I cannot imagine a decision more personal or one which, no matter how resolved, requires greater bravery. To the very end, ALS deserves its grim nickname as the Cruelest Disease.
Again and again, I was told that ALS obeys no rules. Nonetheless, I am sure there are inaccuracies in my portrayal, just as there are likely to be in other parts of the book that depend on technical information. For all such errors I bear sole responsibility.
—S.T.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003
Copyright © 1999 by Scott Turow
All rights reserved
Lyrics from “Yesterday,” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, are quoted with the permission of Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Copyright © 1965 (renewed) Sony/ATV Songs LLC. All rights reserved.
Lyrics from “A Bushel and a Peck,” by Frank Loesser, are quoted with the permission of the Hal Leonard Corp. Copyright © 1950 (renewed) FRANK MUSIC CORP. All rights reserved.
A signed first edition of this book has been privately printed by The Franklin Library. A portion of this book appeared, in slightly different form, in Playboy magazine.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data
Turow, Scott.
Personal injuries / Scott Turow.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-374-28194-6
I. Title.
PS3570.U754P47 1999b
813’.54—dc21 99-30829