Daniel de Visé

Su Meck

Documents the story of an amnesia survivor who permanently lost all of her memories after a traumatic brain injury and who endured a more than 25-year effort to relearn basic skills and reclaim her life.

A Memoir of Amnesia

I Forgot to Remember

"Written by Don Knotts's brother-in-law and featuring extensive unpublished interviews with those closest to both men, [this book explores] the legacy of The Andy Griffith Show and ... two of America's most enduring stars"--Amazon.com.

The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show

Andy and Don

The story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture "They're not going to catch us," Dan Aykroyd, as Elwood Blues, tells his brother Jake, played by John Belushi. "We're on a mission from God." So opens the musical action comedy The Blues Brothers, which hit theaters on June 20, 1980. Their scripted mission was to save a local Chicago orphanage. But Aykroyd, who conceived and wrote much of the film, had a greater mission: to honor the then-seemingly forgotten tradition of rhythm and blues, some of whose greatest artists--Aretha Franklin, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles--made the film as unforgettable as its wild car chases. Much delayed and vastly over budget, beset by mercurial and oft drugged-out stars, The Blues Brothers opened to outraged reviews. However, in the 44 years since, it has been acknowledged a classic: it has been inducted into the National Film Registry for its cultural significance, even declared a "Catholic classic" by the Church itself, and re-aired thousands of times on television to huge worldwide audiences. It is, undeniably, one of the most significant films of the twentieth century. The story behind any classic is rich; the saga behind The Blues Brothers, as Daniel de Visé reveals, is epic, encompassing the colorful childhoods of Belushi and Aykroyd; the comedic revolution sparked by Harvard's Lampoon and Chicago's Second City; the birth and anecdote-rich, drug-filled early years of Saturday Night Live, where the Blues Brothers were born as an act amidst turmoil and rivalry; and, of course, the indelible behind-the-scenes narrative of how the film was made, scene by memorable scene. Based on original research and dozens of interviews probing the memories of principals from director John Landis and producer Bob Weiss to Aykroyd himself, The Blues Brothers illuminates an American masterpiece while vividly portraying the creative geniuses behind modern comedy.

An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic

The Blues Brothers

'Without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced' Eric Clapton 'No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues' President Barack Obama 'One part of me says, "Yes, of course I can play." But the other part of me says, "Well, I wish I could just do it like B.B. King."' John Lennon King of the Blues is the story of the first and only superstar of American blues. But it is also a chronicle of the African-American experience. B.B. King grew up in the Deep South, a few generations after the end of slavery, imprisoned within a cruel system of wage slavery known as sharecropping. King of the Blues will also tell the larger story of the birth of modern popular music. B.B. King's boundless ambition and tireless toil gave him initial success, topping the charts in the 1950s and early '60s. But then his career hit a wall when his version of classic blues music could not break through to the mainstream. But then, after years of being out of the limelight, B.B.'s music was rediscovered by new listeners, who saw that he had inspired their guitar rock heroes. From the 1970s on, each time his popularity faded, his music was given new life: fronting for The Rolling Stones, acclaimed by Eric Clapton, praised by U2 and Bono. His last concert was performed in late 2014, six months before he died at age 89.

The Rise and Reign of B. B. King

King of the Blues

The courageous memoir of a woman who was robbed of all her memories by a traumatic brain injury—and her more than twenty-five-year struggle to reclaim her life: “[A tale] of triumph in the search for identity” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1988, Su Meck was twenty-two and married with two children when a ceiling fan fell and struck her on the head, erasing all her memories of her life. Although her body healed rapidly, her memories never returned. After just three weeks in the hospital, her physicians released Su and she returned home to take care of her two toddlers. What would you do if you lost your past? Adrift in a world about which she understood almost nothing, Su became an adept mimic, gradually creating routines and rituals that sheltered her and her family from the near-daily threat of disaster—or so she thought. Though Su would eventually relearn to tie her shoes, cook a meal, read, and write, nearly twenty years would pass before a series of personally devastating events shattered the “normal” life she had worked so hard to build, and she realized that she would have to grow up all over again. In her own indelible voice, Su offers a unique view from the inside of a terrible injury as she “recounts her grueling climb back to normalcy…in this heart-wrenching true story” (O, The Oprah Magazine). Piercing, heartbreaking, but finally uplifting, I Forgot to Remember is the story of a woman determined to live life on her own terms.

“Greg LeMond was Lance Armstrong before Lance Armstrong . . . the story of a true hero . . . This is a must read if you believe in miracles.”―John Feinstein, New York Times–bestselling author In July 1986, Greg LeMond stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, the world’s pre-eminent bicycle race, defeating French cycling legend Bernard Hinault. Nine months later, LeMond lay in a hospital bed, his life in peril after a hunting accident, his career as a bicycle racer seemingly over. And yet, barely two years after this crisis, LeMond mounted a comeback almost without parallel in professional sports. In summer 1989, he again won the Tour—arguably the world’s most grueling athletic contest—by the almost impossibly narrow margin of 8 seconds over another French legend, Laurent Fignon. It remains the closest Tour de France in history. “[A] blend of chaos, kindness and cruelty typifies the scenes that journalist de Visé brings to life in this sympathetic-verging-on-reverential retelling of LeMond’s trailblazing career (first American to enter the tour, first to win it) . . . As an author in quest of his protagonist’s motivation, [de Visé] subjects it to extreme torque.”—The Washington Post “A great book . . . Well written and thoroughly researched . . . Engrossing and hard to put down. If you’re a Greg LeMond fan, The Comeback is a must read because it’s a detailed accounting of his career and―more importantly―his life and person off the bike. It’s also an important reminder that American cycling did not begin and end with Lance Armstrong.”—PEZ

Daniel de Visé

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