Peter Dunlap-Shohl, My Degeneration
Peter Dunlap-Shohl describes his diagnosis at age 43 with Parkinson’s as a meteor strike, its impact “transforming... [the] world into smoking ash” and later, as another falling object that pins him to the ground: a grand piano. Dunlap-Shohl, a former editorial cartoonist for the Anchorage Daily News, is leveled by the news that this disease is “progressive, disabling, and incurable.” The artist frequently draws on the lush landscape of the Alaskan wilds as a metaphor for his internal state. In a cartographic panel towards the end of the book, he envisions his path as a kind of explorer, navigating the “mountains of denial,” “plains of despair,” and “forest of confusion.”
Indeed, at the beginning of Dunlap’s graphic memoir, it doesn’t look good: we learn of a despondent Dunlap’s botched plan to convince a bear to eat him on his morning run. This isn’t as grim as it sounds–mostly because of the wry sense of humor that Dunlap exhibits throughout his narrative, even in his lowest moments. With time Dunlap learns to “speak Parkinson’s,” and develops his own strategies for living with the disease.