Parkinson's Blues

This book begins describing the onset of Parkinson’s, the arrival of the dark unexpected. In a Monty Python skit, someone is nagged by questions. “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition,” he complains. Suddenly Michael Palin, in red 16th century costume, bursts into the room. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” he shrieks. Who expects the onset of Parkinson’s? Or cancer? Or stroke? Or the loss of a child? The terrible surprise isn’t limited to Parkinson’s. It’s the existential condition of everyone’s life. In fourteen sketches, John J. Clayton links the experience of PD with the experience of childhood sickness, family battles, the struggle to make a good life out of a painful life.


"John Clayton, with his Parkinson’s, admits to feeling like a ghost, but his work here is a tour de force of flesh, blood, and a vital spirit. An acute act of memory, a lifetime’s moral reckoning, a refusal to go gently, the pinnacle of an elegant writer’s talent - Parkinson’s Blues is a book of healing and of hope.”—James Carroll, author of The Cloister


“Written not with pity or anger, but with grace, dignity, and love, we see the world through the lens of rich character descriptions and masterful use of dialogue help this journey unfold through powerful slices of religion, family, and friendships. This is an important book.”

—Jeffrey S. Copeland, professor of English, University of Northern Iowa and author of Plague in Paradise: The Black Death in Los Angeles, 1924, Shell Games: The Life and Times of Pearl McGill and many other stories.