He couldn’t finish his story. Let's find an ending together.
Starting where Dad left off
A life cut short by glioblastoma. An unfinished manuscript to bring other heroes home. Get involved with Odyssey:GBM today.
What is Odyssey: GBM?
Homer Is Not Dead was the third medical mystery my father, William H Simon, MD, was writing when glioblastoma (GBM) stopped him mid-story. Eighteen chapters, unfinished — like the life that wrote them.
We didn't even try to figure out how it was supposed to end,
Instead, Odyssey: GBM takes the story he was already telling - a hero chasing an ancient Greek mystery through the modern version of Homer's Odyssey - and flips it. As Odysseus fought monsters to get home to the people he loved, glioblastoma is the monster that keeps families like mine from getting there. That has to end.
We can't rewrite what happened to our own north star. But we can use the pages he left behind to support research that can change the ending for someone else's.
Odyssey:GBM is a testament to that.
Read the unfinished manuscript he left behind and help create a better story for the families still fighting this monster.
Cut short by glioblastoma, Dad’s last book - Homer is Not Dead - was never finished. But what a story:
“Dr. Ham Marks just wanted to attend a university debate about whether Homer the poet ever existed. Instead, he found a body in the men’s room, an ancient fragment worth a million dollars, and a Greek motorcycle gang recreating the Odyssey to get it back - Cyclops, whirlpool, and all.”
Through Odyssey:GBM, we're sharing the eighteen chapters he wrote exactly as he left them — unedited, unresolved, in his own voice - to support the families who also lost their hero.
As it should be.
Read what Dad left behind
If you’re moved after reading Dad’s own “fragment” all about a mystery surrounding Homer’s, please support critical research into this terminal brain cancer by donating to the Glioblastoma Foundation in his name.
The mission of the Glioblastoma Foundation is to transform the standard of care for glioblastoma. We support the development of new drugs and other effective therapies for glioblastoma. Because each glioblastoma is different, it is likely that no one drug will work for everyone, and any therapies for glioblastoma will need to be targeted. Glioblastoma Foundation supports the development of targeted therapies for glioblastoma.
Support GBM research today
Bill was passionate about helping people, his family, singing, gardening, and football — the Philadelphia Eagles, specifically. He studied at Princeton, earned his MD at the University of Pennsylvania, and trained further at Harvard, before practicing as an orthopedic surgeon in Philadelphia for the rest of his life.
He'd wanted to be a doctor since he got a toy doctor's kit as a kid. Six decades of patients and medical students knew him for his cheerful demeanor, his keen intellect, his good humor, and his hands. He authored several texts and articles along the way.
Off the clock, he traveled with his wife Michele, FaceTimed his daughter Eve every single day, kept his dog Tucker permanently underfoot, and wrote a series of medical mystery novels starring a loveably quirky doctor who looked a lot like him on paper.
About William H. Simon, MD