A review by socraticgadfly
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig
5.0
Eig gets past some of the veil-hazed Gehrig mythos, especially about his two years in dealing with the knowledge of ALS.
By going into detail about Gehrig's initial visit to the Mayo Clinic, he makes it clear that, at the start, Gehrig knew more about this disease than the traditonal mythology portrayed. When he first gave his wife the news, in fact, it was him hiding some things from her, not the other way around.
True, she eventually did further research, but Eig relates nothing to support the myth that Mayo doctors were feeding here more realistic prognoses behind her back.
Rather, Gehrig, a bit like Ronald Reagan, *wanted* to believe -- and did. Yet, as Eig poignantly shows, he looked past his own web of deceit to the outside world his final months, as if he and his visitors were looking at some sort of inside joke whenever he said things like "fifty-fifty chance."
By going into detail about Gehrig's initial visit to the Mayo Clinic, he makes it clear that, at the start, Gehrig knew more about this disease than the traditonal mythology portrayed. When he first gave his wife the news, in fact, it was him hiding some things from her, not the other way around.
True, she eventually did further research, but Eig relates nothing to support the myth that Mayo doctors were feeding here more realistic prognoses behind her back.
Rather, Gehrig, a bit like Ronald Reagan, *wanted* to believe -- and did. Yet, as Eig poignantly shows, he looked past his own web of deceit to the outside world his final months, as if he and his visitors were looking at some sort of inside joke whenever he said things like "fifty-fifty chance."