Imagine hearing these words: "She has Alzheimer's."
Now imagine that "she" is vibrant, active, loving, healthy … and just 55.

Acclaimed CBS News reporter Barry Petersen, writes about hearing the unimaginable: what it meant, what it still means, what he did--and didn't do--and how this beautiful love story needs to be read by the thousands of families who have already heard that same devastating diagnosis… EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMER'S.

Jan's Story is a full, rich story of two people--and thousands like them--for whom "forever"suddenly and terrifyingly has an expiration date.

Barry Petersen is a long-time, award-winning TV journalist who has covered wars, the devastating Asian tsunami, the historic confrontation at Tiananmen Square, the unspeakable deaths in Rwanda, and so much more…but was not even slightly prepared for what happened to his darling wife, Jan.

Reviews and Accolades

"This is a love story, a travelogue, a television history...and a stunning, achingly personal journey. Dashing and fearless, nothing could stop Barry, the veteran war correspondent, until tragedy knocked him cold. This is the story of life, love, loss and renewal."
~ Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor, NBC Nightly News

As Barry shows in "Jan's Story," all of us learn, in time, to accept that our beloveds would wish us to have a second chance at life, just as we would wish that for them. We do that while never forgetting what we once had and cherished… what we once had and lost.
~ Katie Couric, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and correspondent for 60 Minutes

"This is a true story that reads like a novel. I knew Jan and Barry from their days in Moscow, London and Asia. More than once, she and Barry opened their home to me. She was intelligent, talented, and gracious, always with a smile and with a wonderful sense of humor...as true as the blue of a Texas sky. And then Barry and Jan were slowly, excruciatingly lowered into a version of hell that enveloped them like a dark, toxic fog. "Jan's Story" tells how they faced heartbreak with courage, and Alzheimer's Disease with a will to survive."
~ Dan Rather, anchor of Dan Rather Reports, HDNet

"In Jan's Story, Barry Petersen shares his journey into life as a caregiver to his wife, Jan, diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease at fifty-five. An intimate and courageously honest memoir about devastating loss, enduring love, and finding strength to carry on, Jan's Story is a gift to other families dealing with younger onset Alzheimer's, not because their challenges and decisions will exactly mirror Barry's and Jan's, but because they will know that they're not alone."
~ Lisa Genova, New York Times Bestselling author of Still Alice

Barry Petersen's utterly honest love story moved me to tears. With a reporter's eye for detail and a poet's insight, he poignantly shares his desperate attempt to care for the wife he adores. The book succeeds because he hides nothing. He intimately leads us through his fear, anger, magical thinking, guilt, depression, and - ultimately - reborn hope.
~ Jon LaPook, MD Medical Correspondent-CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine-Columbia University Medical Center

About the Author

Multiple Emmy award winner Barry Petersen has covered wars, genocide, interviewed Jimmy Stewart (who answered the door to his Beverly Hills home himself), Anthony Hopkins and several Bosnian War Crimes Tribunal suspects. He covered the war in Bosnia, Tiananmen Square and Rwanda.

Barry watched Mikhail Gorbachev walk among the crowds in the streets of Vilnius, Lithuania, begging them to stay in the Soviet Union and reported on the Iraq war, living on adrenaline, cigarettes and cookies, while having a target painted on his back.

Barry earned one of his Emmys for reporting the Siege of Sarajevo for CBS Sunday Morning. He shared both Peabody and DuPont Awards for being a part of the CBS News Radio coverage of the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, and an Edward R. Murrow award for, of all things, sports writing for a story on baseball coming to Beijing.

Prior to working in television, Barry was a reporter, copyeditor, photographer and sometimes columnist for several newspapers including the Milwaukee (WI) Journal, Chicago (IL) TODAY, Omaha (NE) World-Herald and the Miami (FL) Herald.