I’ve helped a lot of authors with their memoirs. But working with Sam Simon, a lifelong advocate for justice and social change, the third time around has been a whole new kind of experience. After writing The Actual Dance, a memoir about his wife, Susan, battling stage 3 breast cancer that she was not expected to survive, Sam has chronicled his own medical challenge—life with Alzheimer’s disease. Based on his award-winning one-man play of the same name, Dementia Man, in the words of his media release, “offers an unflinching, deeply human portrait of what it means to choose life and live fully while navigating the loss of memory, independence, and certainty.”

Dementia Man takes the reader on Sam’s cognitive impairment journey, from first noticing memory issues that his doctors originally dismissed to an eventual diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s and the associated frustrations and challenges. Not a person willing to go “gentle [or silent] into the good night,” Sam wrote a play and now this memoir to challenge everything from how people facing this new reality are treated by the medical establishment to the ongoing lack of societal acceptance and accommodation. “Sam Simon is a gift to us all as we seek more space and place for people with memory challenges in our lives,” says Stephen G. Post, PhD, Director, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics, Stony Brook University School of Medicine.

Considering Sam’s background as one of the original Nader Raiders—known for their investigative work on consumer protection and government accountability, and producing influential reports that led to significant reforms—Sam’s memoir also dives into his history as a troublemaker. The personal account of his past gives readers a visceral sense of who Sam is, making his escalating loss of cognition particularly touching, and his determination to embrace life despite the challenges particularly inspiring.

Both heartbreaking and uplifting, Dementia Man shows us how to accept the cards we’re dealt that can’t be changed, while continuing to make our mark and improve our own reality and the reality of all those around us. As his media release states, his “account is also a love story of partnership, purpose, and finding meaning amid uncertainty. As he writes with candor about his evolving relationship with his wife, Susan, and their shared resilience, readers are reminded that even in decline, there can be growth.”

From the very start, I felt that Dementia Man would reach a wide audience and help those who have been diagnosed with neurocognitive disorders, as well as all those around them. So, I’m not surprised that one day into pre-orders and five days before its official launch date on 11/18, Sam’s inspiring memoir has already hit #1 New Release in Amazon’s Alzheimer’s category. I couldn’t be prouder of Amazon’s newest bestselling author.