Crashing Through (33 page)

Based on her work with May, Fine received a five-year grant to study long-term visual deprivation and sight recovery. She was thirty-two years old, much younger than the average first-time grant recipient. The work also led directly to a professorship in the department of ophthalmology at the University of Southern California. She married longtime boyfriend and fellow vision scientist Geoff Boynton in 2003.

In 2006, Fine and Boynton accepted professorships in the psychology department at the University of Washington. She continues to test May in an effort to further understand how and why parts of his visual cortex changed their representations after he went blind.

During a routine physical exam in 2006, May’s family physician found a discolored spot on his chest. In past visits, such spots had not worried the doctor. This time, the man said, “This isn’t good, Mike.”

The doctor snipped a sample from May’s chest to send for testing. A week later, he called with the results.

“It’s malignant. You need to come in right away.”

In the office, the doctor applied a topical anesthetic and cut away the rest of the spot. He explained to May that such skin cancers were common among adults over age fifty, and that so long as they were detected and removed early, as this one had been, they usually posed no further danger.

“I took cyclosporine for a long time,” May told the doctor. “I always wondered if this day was coming.”

The doctor said that it was impossible to know whether the cyclosporine had caused the cancer. But he did not rule it out.

At home, May told Jennifer the news. Since the spot was so small and could not be felt, they would need to be vigilant in watching for others.

“Do you think it was the cyclosporine?” Jennifer asked.

“I was really curious about that,” May said. “But you know what? In the end, I don’t think it matters. In the end, no matter what, I would have done everything the same.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful for the help and support of the following people:

Kate Medina, my editor at Random House, who believed in me and understood me from the start. Kate’s sense of story and instinct for what matters to people are the products of a beautiful heart. The help she gives a writer in finding and conveying his own heart is a gift that lasts a lifetime.

Robin Rolewicz, editor, for her unwavering support and encouragement, and for her insightful and invaluable reading of my manuscript. Robin was with me every day on this book, and her contributions helped me immensely.

Abby Plesser, editorial assistant, who read my work, cheered me on, and made things easy for me.

Gina Centrello, president and publisher of the Random House Publishing Group, who has made Random House a true home for me.

Sally Marvin, my friend and the best publicist in the business. I can’t imagine making these journeys without her.

Thanks also at Random House to: Dennis Ambrose, Rachel Bernstein, Nicole Bond, Sanyu Dillon, Sue Driskill, Kristin Fassler, Megan Fishmann, Paul Kozlowski, Ruth Liebmann, Marty McGrath, Elizabeth McGuire, Katie Mehan, Gene Mydlowski, Tom Nevins, Peter Olson, Allyson Pearl, Jack Perry, Thomas Perry, Bridget Piekarz, Lydah Pyles, Kelle Ruden, Carol Russo, Stephanie Sabol, Carol Schneider, Erich Schoeneweiss, Beck Stvan, Bonnie Thompson, David Thompson, Claire Tisne, David Underwood, Jaci Updike, Andrew Weber, Don Weisberg, and Amelia Zalcman.

Flip Brophy, my literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic. I feel privileged to have joined forces with her and am so lucky to know that she’s by my side.

Mike May invited me into his home and his life. For two years, he sat for countless hours of interviews and was unwaveringly thoughtful and frank in his answers. Mike included me on business trips, doctor visits, family outings, Labor Day cookouts, and skiing weekends. He picked up the phone at every hour to answer my queries. And he was patient with me. I spent weeks asking him to recall the most minute details of his early vision, and pushing him to describe every moment of certain experiences; he never rushed a single answer or asked me to move things along. An author could not hope to work with a brighter subject, finer gentleman, or nicer guy.

Jennifer May was equally generous with her time and forthcoming in her answers. Not only did she forgive my intrusions into her family, she made me feel at home for the long stretches I spent away from my own home. Carson and Wyndham May were cool with me borrowing their dad for whatever time I needed him.

Bryan Bashin, a genuinely kind man with a wonderful mind. Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had came over dinners with Bashin in Sacramento.

Dr. Daniel F. Goodman of San Francisco, who carved time from a busy schedule to discuss May’s case, the technical aspects of stem cell and cornea transplants, and the emotions a doctor feels when he has helped a person to see.

Richard Gregory, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, who spent time with me in England explaining the critical role of implicit knowledge in human vision, and recalling his landmark 1963 case study of Sidney Bradford. No one has ever explained science to me more clearly or with as much passion and joy. It is impossible to know Richard Gregory and not wish oneself a fraction as engaged with the world and ideas as he is.

Dr. Ione Fine, without whom I could not have hoped to understand the brain’s role in vision or May’s singular case. Fine is exceptionally smart, and she also possesses that rarest of skills—the ability to explain complex concepts in ways that come alive for the layperson. It was never surprising, even when she was describing neural architecture, to know she was the daughter of a renowned children’s book author.

Professors Geoff Boynton at the University of Washington, Donald MacLeod at the University of California–San Diego, Steven Shevell at the University of Chicago, and Alex Wade at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco, who helped me understand vision science; and Dr. Ali Djalilian, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dr. Edward J. Holland, Director of Cornea Services at the Cincinnati Eye Institute, who taught me about corneal epithelial stem cell transplantation. It was thrilling to learn from all of them.

Thanks also to: Dr. Mike Carson, Kim Casey, Fiona Morrison-Cassidy, Ori Jean May, Nick Medina, Mark Pighin, Sheila Randolph, Ron Salviolo, and Diane Slater.

Elliott Harris and Robert Feder of the
Chicago Sun-Times
and author Jonathan Eig have read my writing and have been my sounding boards for years. Richard Babcock of
Chicago
magazine gave me a wonderful opportunity and made me a better writer. Jonathan Karp began my journey into books; his instinct for story and character continues to resonate with me.

I cannot adequately thank David Granger and Mark Warren at
Esquire.
I think differently about writing, manhood, and friendship from knowing them. I will never forget how passionately Mark believed in the Mike May story. I will always remember how Mark and David believed in me. Thanks also to Peter Griffin, Tyler Cabot, and Victor Ozols at
Esquire.

Elizabeth Gabler and Rodney Ferrell at Fox 2000 Pictures, who connect with the spirit of my work and are two of the loveliest people I know; Gil Netter, a true friend and superlative producer at Fox; Bruce Rubin, a beautiful man and writer who reminds me often about what matters most; and Jonathan Liebman and Kassie Evashevski at Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, for their faith and support.

Two of the finest writers I know—Ken Kurson and Annette Kurson—reviewed and critiqued my manuscript. Ken is my best friend and his encouragement was inspirational. Annette taught me to write and continues to do so, not just through words but through a special sensitivity to the world. Jane Glover reviewed the book with the same sweet heart I’ve known since we were kids. Thanks also to Rebecca, Steve, Carrie, and Anna Kurson, and to Larry, Mike, and Sam Glover. And the memory of my dad, Jack D. Kurson, the best storyteller I’ve ever known. I still hear his stories in my dreams.

Dr. Steven Tureff, and Robert Gassman, Lynn Gassman, Lauren Freedman, and Mike Collins have been blessings to me and my family—I can never thank them enough. Thanks also to Steven Beer, Randi Valerious, Brad Ginsberg, Jane Thompson, David Shapson, Bill Adee, Seth Traxler, Dori Frankel Steigman, Ray George, and Daniel Meyerowitz; and to Mitchell Lopata of Lopata Design for his beautiful illustrations.

I couldn’t hope to write without the love and support of the Wisniewski family—Kazimiera, Eugeniusz, and Paula. They are my family and I love them.

Finally, thanks to Amy, Nate, and Will Kurson. They are my true loves and inspiration. I have never known a heart like Amy’s, nor a greater champion. For more reasons than I could hope to list, this is her book as much as it is mine.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

I spent hundreds of hours over two years interviewing Mike May: at his home in Davis, California; alongside him during his business trips to Chicago, Washington, D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco, London, Los Angeles, Kalamazoo, and the Kirkwood Ski Resort in the California mountains; and by telephone and Internet during his travels to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Central and South America.

Jennifer May granted me dozens of hours of interview time, both at her home in Davis and by phone. Carson and Wyndham May popped in and out of interview sessions to add memories of the year in which their father gained vision. I interviewed May’s family, friends, and teachers to learn about his life.

Human vision—and the brain’s role in it—is a massively complex subject. It was explained to me in person by Dr. Richard Gregory in England; Professors Ione Fine, Geoff Boynton, and Donald MacLeod in San Diego; Dr. Alex Wade at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco; and Dr. Steven Shevell at the University of Chicago. I benefited greatly from the textbook
Sensation and Perception
(sixth edition) by E. Bruce Goldstein, published by Wadsworth; I can’t remember reading a textbook at once so engaging and educational. For the role of knowledge in vision, I read Richard L. Gregory’s books
Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing
from Princeton University Press, and
The Intelligent Eye
from McGraw Hill, as well as his monograph “Knowledge for vision: vision for knowledge” from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. V. S. Ramachandran’s
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Imposter

Poodles to Purple Numbers
from Pi Press provided a lively primer in the miracle of the brain.

Sight recovery after a lifetime of blindness is extraordinarily rare. For accounts of those cases (the first dates back about a thousand years) I relied on M. Von Senden’s hard-to-find book
Space and Sight
from Methuen & Co., and Alberto Valvo’s equally rare pamphlet “Sight Restoration after Long-Term Blindness: The Problems and Behavior Patterns of Visual Rehabilitation,” from American Foundation for the Blind. For the case of Virgil, I read Oliver Sacks’s beautiful article “To See and Not See,” originally published in
The New Yorker
and taken from his book
An Anthropologist on Mars,
published by Vintage Books. I learned the case of Sidney Bradford from Gregory’s seminal paper, “Recovery from Early Blindness: A Case Study,” written with Jean Wallace and published in the “Experimental Psychology Society Monograph No. 2,” and from interviews I did with Gregory in England.

I came to understand the technical and scientific details of May’s own case through extensive interviews with Fine, Boynton, Wade, MacLeod, and Dr. Daniel F. Goodman. Invaluable to me was Fine’s groundbreaking paper “Long-term Deprivation Affects Visual Perception and Cortex,” published in
Nature Neuroscience,
volume 6, number 9.

The revolutionary and complex stem cell surgery that restored May’s vision was explained to me by Dr. Edward J. Holland, director of Cornea Services at the Cincinnati Eye Institute and professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of Cincinnati; Dr. Ali Djalilian, assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and by Dr. Goodman, the ophthalmologist who performed the operation on May.

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Chapter Thirteen, inverted face photographs, courtesy of the author

Chapter Thirteen, Shepard Tables, courtesy of Dr. Roger Shepard. First appeared in
Mind Sights
by Roger N. Shepard, published by W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1990.

Chapter Fourteen, Chaplin mask, courtesy of Richard L. Gregory

Chapter Fourteen, “Terror Subterra,” courtesy of Dr. Roger Shepard. First appeared in
Mind Sights
by Roger N. Shepard, published by W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1990.

Chapter Fourteen, turtle fossil, courtesy of John P. Adamek, EDCOPE Enterprises, Fossilmall.com

Chapter Fourteen, fish fossil, courtesy of Denise Neville

Chapter Fourteen, strange tool, courtesy of the author

Chapter Fourteen, stem cell slide, courtesy of Dr. Tung-Tien Sun

Chapter Fourteen, cats in baskets, illustration by Lopata Design

Chapter Fourteen, occlusion, illustration by Lopata Design

Chapter Fourteen, relative height, illustration by Lopata Design

Chapter Fourteen, cast shadows, illustration by Lopata Design

Chapter Fourteen, eight balls, illustration by Lopata Design

Chapter Fourteen, dolphins, Marc M. Ellis, www.h2opictures.com

Chapter Fourteen, mountain range, courtesy of Free High Resolution Photos, www.pointie.com/free_photos

Chapter Fourteen, railroad tracks, courtesy of the author

Chapter Fourteen, texture gradient, courtesy of the author

Chapter Fourteen, shape from shading, illustration by Lopata Design

Chapter Fourteen, windmill, Marc M. Ellis, www.h2opictures.com

Chapter Fourteen, elephant, side view, courtesy of David Shapson

Chapter Fourteen, elephant, rear view, courtesy of David Shapson