![]() ![]() I don’t feel comfortable writing or talking about my father’s illness. “Those were the toughest days of my life. Francesca was 18 months old when Erich Segal was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. I remember him getting up at five every single morning to work,” she says. Most importantly, he told me the value of hard work in writing. ![]() Francesca has spent most of her conscious memory not knowing her father, yet the little time that she remembers was significant in bringing out the writer in her. Erich Segal died of a heart attack at 72, in 2010, after fighting Parkinson’s disease for the last 30 years of his life. Even though Erich Segal went on to write other books - Man, Woman and Child, Oliver’s Story, Doctors, among others - it was Love Story that remained his biggest success. By 1970, the book and movie had made her dad a household name all over the world. “Love Story was a product of a Christmas break based on a true story my dad had heard,” she says. As Francesca Segal, 32, debuts with her novel, The Innocents, she remembers how her father’s book changed their lives forever. Her earliest memories are of her dad, Erich Segal writing Love Story in his study. ![]() As she debuts as an author, Francesca Segal tells Nona Walia how her father, Erich Segal, taught her the value of hard work in a writer’s life. ![]()
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