Bestselling Author and Mental Health Advocate
For the past four years, I have published at least one blog per week. I am under pressure to get my new novel written by September 1st so I will be posting blogs on an irregular basis until after that deadline. Thanks for your patience and support.
Have a great summer!
Pete Earley
One reason why I wrote about my father’s dementia in The Washington Post last weekend and reprinted that personal account on my author’s blog was because I’d read an inspiring story in Publishers Weekly written by Laura Pritchett. An accomplished novelist, Pritchell said that she had drawn on her experience’s with her father, who has Alzheimer’s, in creating the main character in her new book, STARS GO BLUE. Her fictional character is slowly losing his mind to the illness.
….I wanted to write a novel based on my father. I also wrote to give him voice, which is why I made the decision to tell the story from his point of view (not an easy task, to tell a story via a diminishing mind.) I wanted him to say everything he wanted to say before the silence set in. Most of all, I wrote STARS GO BLUE to see him with renewed clarity, so that I could love him better and more deeply than every I had before.
I wish to thank those of you who sent me emails or posted comments on Facebook about my recent Father’s Day blog. I was deeply touched by the concern and support that I received. I also appreciate how many of you shared your stories with me about your own parents and other loved ones with dementia. Knowing that you cared enough to reach out to my family was deeply appreciated.
I also have some good news to share.
Publishers Weekly, the bible of publishing, named the memoir that I have written with Jessie Close as one of the Top Ten Memoirs being published this fall. RESILIENCE will be officially published January 6th but is available for pre-order now. Grand Central Publishing announced an initial press run of 150,000 hardbacks. That’s more than any book I have participated in writing.
A FATHER’S DAY GOODBYE
Published in THE WASHINGTON POST on Sunday, June 22
By Pete Earley
Father’s Day found me with a man who often doesn’t remember who I am, although we have spent much of his 93 years together. My father has dementia.
Five years ago, I persuaded my parents to move from Spearfish, S.D., into a second house that my wife and I own that doubles as my office. Leaving a community where they were well-established was difficult. But they enjoyed seeing grandchildren, spent Saturdays at garage sales and played Upwords with me at lunch time. It was good.
I first noticed little things. Forgetfulness, confusing names. It’s part of aging, I thought.
BITS AND PIECES FOR FRIDAY
* Jessie Close’s memoir, which I helped write, has made it through the editor’s hands and will be published in January. It’s called RESILIENCE and recounts Jessie’s recovery from a debilitating mental illness and alcoholism which together drove her to the brink of suicide. I’ll tell you more closer to the book’s release but I wanted to share the book’s cover art with you. Bravo to Jessie for having the courage to tell her story and thanks to her sister, Glenn Close, for her support, enthusiasm and encouragement throughout the book writing process.
*My Monday blog about alternatives to calling the police when someone is having a mental health crisis prompted a slew of emails. Several readers told me they didn’t want to comment on Facebook because they are strong supporters of Crisis Intervention Team training and were afraid that saying anything that might be viewed as being critical of the police could be discouraging to the CIT program.
In the midst of news coverage about Elliot Rodgers and the Santa Barbara mass murders that he committed, The Washington Post published a news story that alarmed and saddened me.
According to the article, the parents of Blaec Lammers became concerned after the 20 year-old purchased an AR-15 rifle and admitted that he was having homicidal thoughts about going to a local movie theater or Wal Mart to shoot people. He had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness.
Pete Earley is the bestselling author of such books as The Hot House and Crazy. When he is not spending time with his family, he tours the globe advocating for mental health reform.
As a former reporter for The Washington Post, Pete uses his journalistic background to take a fair-minded approach to the story all while weaving an interesting tale for the reader.