Ed: I received several reviews of this new book and a link back to Amazon. Below are several reviews which seem to like the book. From the summary there is much to identify with, although I think the author had a tougher row to hoe than I.
Editorial Reviews
Review
The painful story of what it’s like to become crippled as an adolescent and forever dependent on others. Now in his 60s, Presley got a booster shot of the Salk attenuated polio virus vaccine in 1959 at age 17.
Designed to enhance immunity, the virus instead produced major paralysis, which required the boy’s removal to an iron lung and then to a series of rocking beds and mechanical devices to force air into his lungs.
Over time he gained a little upper-body strength and was able to get around in a wheelchair and breathe on his own – but with respirators handy for when his weakened lungs tired.
Now some 50 years and seven wheelchairs later, Presley recounts his evolution from the deep anger, self-pity, frustration, passivity and hostility of those first decades of bitterness and depression to his emergence as an adult.
It didn’t help that he spent those early years as a “crip” on a Missouri farm with a stoical, stiff-upper-lip dad (his mom was loving and devoted). Nor did it help that about the time both parents were dying, he fell ill with post-polio syndrome.
That he recovered, could work, fall in love, marry and convert to Roman Catholicism are part of the trajectory toward a happy ending. But not quite. He is concerned about his stepsons; he continues to feel sad or depressed or angry.
But he has become a fighter, raging against the pity and stigma experienced by people with disabilities, as though they are less than human – attitudes he sees exemplified by Jerry Lewis. Presley’s writing is deeply emotional, sometimes excessive and a bit too self-flagellating. Judicial editing and curbing of the occasional metaphor would help. However, for readers who remember the era of infantile paralysis and newsreels of children in iron lungs, Presley’s descriptions of exactly how they work, as well as the daily care that paralysis demands, are a revelation.One of the more honest and informative disease memoirs. (Kirkus Reviews)
Review
“Seven Wheelchairs is a compelling account of one man’s struggle to learn to live well with a significant disability.
Presley’s memoir powerfully recounts the physical and psychological challenges he faced during his long recovery from polio. It is also a moving story of how the love and care of his parents and later his wife helped him enjoy life seated in his wheelchairs.”—Dan Wilson, author, Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors
“Alternating between sardonic and blunt, Gary Presley maps out an almost-fifty-year trek from infantile paralysis to post-polio syndrome to bonding with his power chair, Little Red; from helpless, passive cripple to defiant Gimp. Presley was paralyzed in the worst possible stage of life—late adolescence—in the 1960s when people like him were pitied and scorned, and he survived with his spirit strong and his lust for life intact. Read this unvarnished account of life at ‘boob high,’ and walk away with a new definition of ‘disabled.’”—Allen Rucker, author, The Best Seat in the House: How I Woke Up One Day and Was Paralyzed for Life
“Although Gary Presley is unable to move or breathe without assistance, his life literally jumps off these pages as he shares with us in painful, powerful, and poetic detail how he has found a lifetime of joy through one hard-earned, courageous breath at a time.”—Susan Parker, author, Tumbling After: Pedaling Like Crazy after Life Goes Downhill
“The tragic irony that caused paralysis in Gary Presley at age seventeen, just as he approached the cusp of adulthood, went on to flavor his bittersweet view of life, temper his rage at the injustice of his fate, gladden his heart toward his wife, Belinda, and, most fortunately for his readers, provide him with the time, insight, and humanity that enabled him to write this searing but ultimately loving memoir. It’s a story so bitingly honest that Presley’s readers sometimes cringe before turning the page, but so extremely well written that we keep turning page after page after page—not only for the gripping story but also for the beauty of the prose.”—Peggy Vincent, author, Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife
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