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In the last year of his life, as the degenerative disease ALS made his muscles progressively useless, Sam Shepard completed an autobiographical novel about a man suffering from a similar but unnamed illness. Unable to hold a pen, Mr. Shepard spoke into a voice-activated recorder. When he could no longer hold the recorder, he dictated to his daughter, Hannah, or his sisters, Roxanne Rogers and Sandy Rogers, who transcribed and read the notes back to him.
“Sometimes he wanted to dictate things at night before going to sleep,”…