Gibson’s Bookstore will host bestselling author Casey Sherman on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
His latest book is The Ice Bucket Challenge, which tells the story of Pete Frates, a Massachusetts man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and how he inspired millions to raise money for research. It was launched Monday in Boston.
Frates was 27 in 2012 when he was diagnosed. Before that he’d played baseball for Boston College and several sports in high school. After college, he continued playing baseball in the German Baseball League.
In 2014, Frates sparked an international viral fundraiser – the Ice Bucket Challenge – in which participants dumped ice water on themselves to raise awareness and money for ALS. It raised some $115 million for the ALS Association that year.
Sherman said he met Frates two years ago after a mutual friend asked him to visit. Frates’s parents John and Nancy, wife Jill and brother Andrew were also there. At that point, Frates was nonverbal.
The family was sharing sentimental stories about Frates when Sherman got a Facebook message.
It was from Frates.
It said, “bull shit,” Sherman said, meaning he didn’t like all the flowery stories about himself.
Sherman said that until that point, he’d never met someone with ALS and hadn’t known how to communicate. Until that message, he hadn’t thought Frates was cognizant of his presence. But he was.
“He was completely aware of everything in the room,” Sherman said.
ALS is a neurodengerative disease that causes the brain to stop communicating with muscles and the muscles atrophy. While Frates’s body shut down, his mind was otherwise working fine, trapped inside.
Sherman said Frates was given a death sentence and used it to change the world.
Driving home that day, Sherman said he knew it would be his next project, despite having just signed a new book deal for Boston Strong and touring with the premiere of Disney’s The Finest Hours movie adaptation.
He wasn’t sure if he could handle it coming off of writing Boston Strong, a story of the Boston Marathon bombing, since it was so emotionally draining.
But a bigger fear is that Frates might not be alive when the book did come out.
Then, Sherman and co-author Dave Wedge got to work.
“Every story has to have a beating heart to it,” he said.
Sherman described the book as “very inspirational” and also “very real, very sad at points.”
He hoped the book would also be a tribute for Frates’s young daughter, Lucy, to have.
Frates and his family have created the Frates ALS Research and Support Fund and continue to speak about ALS.
“Pete Frates chases life,” Sherman said.
Sherman is the author of The Finest Hours and Boston Strong, which have both been made into movies, as well as several other books.
“These stories choose me,” he said. “They inspire me, obviously.”