MIAMI – For restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, groundbreaking supermodel, and nationally renowned lifestyle maven B. Smith, even a lifetime of pioneering success could not prepare her for her most trying challenge yet: Alzheimer’s.
Overcoming new challenges day by day, B. and her husband and business partner Dan Gasby have refused to let her diagnosis diminish their love story or their role as trailblazers.
In her most courageous effort to date, B. serves as a voice for the millions physically, emotionally, and financially devastated by this all-consuming disease.
In BEFORE I FORGET: Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer’s (Harmony Books, on sale January 19), B. and Dan, teamed with Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson, chronicle their obstacles, lessons learned, and vision for the future.
B. Smith and Dan Gasby will be appearing at the Miami Book Fair International on Sunday, November 20, 2016 in Building 7- Room #7106 starting at 11AM.
After nearly twenty years of marriage, B.’s sudden forgetfulness and Dan’s resultant irritation left the seemingly invincible couple hurt, confused, and unsure of their future together.
One day, B. behaved so uncharacteristically that they both had to face the undeniable truth that underlay his wife’s behavior. “You think that the person you love will always operate at their zenith,” says Dan. “But that day, both of us had to admit that something was terribly wrong, and we would have to seek medical help.”
An official diagnosis in 2014 confirmed their fears, forcing B. and Dan to begin a new life–one of daily uncertainty, erratic moods, and memories lost. Decades-long partners in business and love, B. and Dan began a demanding new partnership—that of Alzheimer’s patient and caregiver.
Armed with unfaltering love and fired up by the disturbing statistics surrounding Alzheimer’s, BEFORE I FORGET
extends a message of hope and solidarity to millions who remain unassisted and uninformed.
They share their warts-and-all story on behalf of a community that gains a member every sixty-seven seconds and for the griefstricken families enduring the most costly disease in the United States.
They are also extremely passionate about spreading the word to African-Americans, who are 2 to 3 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s. “Alzheimer’s is an existential threat to all the civil rights gains we’ve made in recent decades,” says Dan. “The tsunami of Alzheimer’s in the African-American community is a social, pathological, and financial Superstorm Sandy.”
Written in deliberately short chapters, BEFORE I FORGET interweaves poignant, humorous, and heartwarming first- person narrative with “Lessons Learned” – sections full of helpful advice derived from B. and Dan’s experiences. Readers learn about coping mechanisms, common challenges, ever-changing family dynamics, and developing research as they follow the authors’ personal journeys.
At its core, though, BEFORE I FORGET is a love story, illuminating the unparalleled strengths of family, understanding, and hope.
