Overview

""". . . a tale with many dimensions told with novelistic confidence"" -Peter Booth Wiley, author and publisher "". . . a must-read for anyone who is faced with the task of caring for and supporting a loved one with a tragic, progressive illness."" -Nathan M. Bass, MD, PhD After months of puzzling symptoms, Kenneth Kann's dad is diagnosed with a ""dread disease,"" amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. His dad and mom try to grasp this life-shattering news. It triggers disturbing realizations that at thirty-five, a proud survivor of sixties radicalism and the counterculture, Kenneth is leading a marginal life as a freelance writer and part-time teacher in Berkeley California. He is still battling with his dad. He is not prepared for his dad to be sick. He cannot absorb what he reads about ALS and what may happen to his dad. He is stunned by his parents' tears. He goes home to help his mom, his dad, and himself."

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Reviews

"""Ken Kann has taken on a gut-wrenching task: writing a memoir about how he shepherded his father through an awful death experience, the rapid onset of immobilization and strangulation by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It's a tale with many dimensions told with novelistic confidence-the conflict between a rebellious son and an overbearing father, Ken's quest to be a historian and an author, the saga of a Jewish immigrant family that began their lives in poverty in a Chicago shtetl, their migration to a comfortable middle-class life in Skokie, and an amateur's guide to ALS, a disease that brings on death without escape. Ultimately, Ken and his father, with death approaching, spent many days and hours growing together with warmth, honesty, mutual respect, and a deep love as they explored their lives, apart and together."" -Peter Booth Wiley, author and publisher ""A powerful and achingly honest account of a young man, alienated from his family's values during the 1960s and 1970s, watching with increasing respect his father's and mother's struggle with the relentless progression of ALS over fifteen months. In telling the stories of the family before, during, and after the struggle, Kann provides a quiet and moving account of how being needed as a son led to his becoming more fully a man."" -Dr. Elizabeth Anderson, physician ""Ken's experience as a historian provides him with a unique and powerful framework to understand the life and death of our father, Sam, Ken's own life, and the unimaginable effects ALS had on our family. With poignancy, pathos, and humor in the face of misery, this book will touch your heart as you travel through the fifteen-month journey of a son's deepening love and respect for his father."" -Bob Kann, Ken's younger brother, author ""Family dynamics are complicated, and that's before the awful diagnosis of ALS. Kenneth Kann's book My Father's ALS: A Son's Healing Journey is more than an account of the ravages of a devastating illness. It weaves the story of this extraordinary disease into Kann's family history in the Jewish communities of Chicago, his father's life journey as a child of immigrants, and his own baby boomer wanderings. Kann offers a complex and moving portrayal of his family's dignity in caring for their husband and father, including Kann's struggles to reconcile with his father after years of conflict. This book is a must-read as we contemplate life's meanings and the unknowns that may confront any of us. -Rabbi Ted Feldman, Petaluma ""This book is a must-read for anyone who is faced with the task of caring for and supporting a loved one with a tragic, progressive illness. There is a bounty of instruction, stoic wisdom, and comfort within its pages for the reader."" -Nathan M. Bass, MD, PhD ""Kenneth Kann captures the ALS experience through the story of his father's devastating illness in 1979-1980. In My Father's ALS: A Son's Healing Journey, Kann recounts how his family coped with his father's disease. Along with life and death battles for survival, the book conveys the humor and absurdity of losing control over your body and the bonds that develop when a loved one needs so much and such intimate help."" -Mary Ann Wittenberg, wife of ALS patient Harry Wittenberg, who wrote about his ALS in Out of Control: Reflections on Matters of Life and Death before he died in 2020. She serves on the board of the ALS Network."

Author Information

Kenneth Kann helped his father live and die with the dread disease ALS. At age thirty-five, in 1979, he was a UC Berkeley history teacher when his father was diagnosed with ALS. After his father died, he enrolled in law school, became a successful litigation attorney, and later became a director of the government agency that administers the California court system. He is the author of two popular history books: Comrades and Chicken Ranchers, the Story of a California Jewish Community and Joe Rapoport, the Life of a Jewish Radical.

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