HOW I BECAME A HUMAN BEING from University of Wisconsin Press at the Book Checkout

HOW I BECAME A HUMAN BEING
HOW I BECAME A HUMAN BEING
Subtitle:
A Disabled Man's Quest for Independence
Book Category:
Biography & Autobiography > General
Author:
O'Brien, Mark Kendall, Gillian (collaborator)
Binding:
Paperback
ISBN 10:
0-299-18434-X
ISBN 13:
978-0-299-18434-6
Price:
USD 24.95
Publication Year:
2012

Publisher Info

Lindsey Meier,

University of Wisconsin Press,
1930 Monroe St.,
Madison ,
Wisconsin - 53711,
USA
Web: uwpress.wisc.edu

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Book Description

In September 1955 six-year-old Mark O'Brien moved his arms and legs for the last time. He came out of a coma to find himself enclosed from the neck down in an iron lung, the machine in which he would live for much of the rest of his life. For the first time in paperback, How I Became a Human Being is O'Brien's account of his struggles to lead an independent life despite a lifelong disability. In 1955 he contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed from the neck down. O'Brien describes growing up without the use of his limbs, his adolescence struggling with physical rehabilitation and suffering the bureaucracy of hospitals and institutions, and his adult life as an independent student and writer. Despite his physical limitations, O'Brien crafts a narrative that is as rich and vivid as the life he led.

 
Ordering/Distributor/Wholesaler Information

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Book Review and Awards

"O'Brien conveys his pain, his suffering, his depression, his anomie--without resorting to tugging at our heartstrings."--Felice Picano, author of Like People in History

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