HOW I BECAME A HUMAN BEING |
Subtitle:
A Disabled Man's Quest for Independence
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Book Category:
Biography & Autobiography > General
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Author:
O'Brien, Mark Kendall, Gillian (collaborator)
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Binding:
Paperback
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ISBN 10:
0-299-18434-X
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ISBN 13:
978-0-299-18434-6
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Price:
USD 24.95
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Publication Year:
2012
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Publisher Info
Lindsey Meier,
University of Wisconsin Press,1930 Monroe St.,
Madison ,
Wisconsin - 53711,USA
Web: uwpress.wisc.edu Inquiry
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.
University of Wisconsin Press c/o Chicago Distribution Center 11030 S. Langley Ave. Chicago, IL 60628-3892 USA [email protected] Ph: 800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000 Fax: 800-621-8476 or 773-702-7212
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