In 2008, Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with 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 life. Despite the loss of almost all motor function, thanks to miraculous technology he has continued to work, help raise his children, and write this astonishing, life-affirming memoir.
Fitzmaurice, a husband and father of five, draws us deeply into his inner world. Told in simply expressed and beautifully stark prose, it is a journey into a life that, though brutally compromised, is lived more fully than most, revealing the potent power of love, of art, and of the human spirit.
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.
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“[A] gripping, affecting, sometimes funny read by a natural-born storyteller with something to say about the weight and the value of a life…If you need a story of courage, of heart, of coming back for more, of love and struggle and the power of both, It’s Not Yet Dark could be the elusive thing you’re after.”
— Joseph O’Connor, author of The Thrill of It All
“Beautifully written. Utterly life-affirming.”
— Alan Rickman, Emmy and Tony Award–winning actor“The word ‘inspirational’ is over-used, but if ever a book deserved this epithet, this is it.”
— Sunday Independent (London)“Sparsely and beautifully written…the human spirit and will to live shines out of these pages.”
— Irish Independent“Part memoir, part stark document of the way [Simon] and his family have dealt with motor-neuron disease, and part fierce celebration of being alive, It’s Not Yet Dark is powerful, gripping and compelling.”
— Irish Times“This book will touch the many corners of your heart. A blending of the hope and anticipation of adulthood with unavoidable fear and pain of a terminal illness.”
— Mystery Suspense Reviews“The heart of this inspirational book is Fitzmaurice’s perseverance…and his unflagging belief ‘in the power to take what life throws at you and slowly to come back, to take all you have and not be crushed by sadness and loss.’”
— Publishers Weekly“A life-affirming chronicle…In a particularly effective section, Fitzmaurice suddenly plunges into his life before ALS…Just as quickly, we are brought back to the present. It’s a marvelous narrative device that’s not often encountered in memoirs and fully cements readers’ identification with the author.”
— Library Journal“A fine and heartfelt memoir from an author hopeful in his determination to endure against the odds.”
— Kirkus Reviews“Survival stories are not about surviving, they’re inherently about what makes a survivor push through. A desire to remain in the light of all creation, even as a darkening is taking place. A darkening which happens to us all.”
— Colin Farrell, award-winning actorBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Simon Fitzmaurice is an award-winning writer and film director. His short film The Sound of People was selected to screen at the Sundance Film Festival. He holds honors master’s degrees in both Anglo-Irish literature and drama and film theory and production, as well as an honorary doctorate of philosophy. His multi-award-winning first feature film, My Name Is Emily, which he wrote and directed using eye-gaze technology, was released in the United States in February 2017. A documentary about Fitzmaurice, also titled It’s Not Yet Dark, premiered at Sundance in January 2017.
Alan Smyth, an audiobook narrator, has worked as a professional actor for more than fifteen years. He has toured extensively in Ireland and the United States and has worked with such companies as the BBC, Paramount Pictures, and Showtime Productions.