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I Live a Life Like Yours
- Author
- Jan Grue
- Narrator
- Graham Halstead
- Publisher
- Pushkin Press
- Publish Date
- 22 December 2021
- Run Time
- 5 hours 6 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Rating
- 5.0 (1 review)
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What to expect
'Superb... up-ends received wisdom about disability… Humbling, dark, bright, defiant, generous… revolutionary' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas
A profoundly beautiful memoir about disability, difference, and living as a vulnerable body
Jan Grue had just become a father when he inherited a stack of his childhood medical records. Following a diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three, the raft of doctors' notes, clinical descriptions and case histories defined his body as defective and his future as bleak and limited. They conjured a childhood nothing like the one he remembered, that failed to anticipate the life he lived now. I Live a Life Like Yours is Grue's beautiful, groundbreaking search for a literary language that could better tell his story.
Writing with clear-eyed wisdom and bracing frankness, Grue folds insights from art, film and literature into an expansive account of who he was expected to be, and who he became. If it is a story of frustration with negligent institutions and the pain of stigma, it is also a story of the potential of acceptance and the gift of family. Unflinching, yet always compassionate, I Live a Life Like Yours is a fierce and tender reckoning with what it means to live as a vulnerable body.
User Reviews
Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
-
5.0 5.0
This book blew me away. The author has had a rare neuromuscular disease since early childhood and needs support including a wheelchair. Despite this he has a successful academic career, a wife and a young child. He describes his personal journey, including musing on books and films, seeking his own way in the world and his humanity. His courage and integrity shine through. He acknowledges the difficulties he has faced but is not defined or deterred by them.
There are a lot of things wrong with our world, including the unnecessary suffering of our most vulnerable people, but I am grateful to and inspired by Jan Grue.ClareHamon 2023-10-30
Details
- Author
- Jan Grue
- Narrator
- Graham Halstead
- Duration
- 5 hours 6 minutes
- Release Date
- 22 December 2021
- ISBN
- 9781782278641
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Pushkin Press
- Genre
- Memoirs, Autobiography: general
- Rating
- 5.0(1 review)
- Narration
- 5.0(1 review)
Synopsis
'Superb... up-ends received wisdom about disability… Humbling, dark, bright, defiant, generous… revolutionary' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas A profoundly beautiful memoir about disability, difference, and living as a vulnerable body Jan Grue had just become a father when he inherited a stack of his childhood medical records. Following a diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three, the raft of doctors' notes, clinical descriptions and case histories defined his body as defective and his future as bleak and limited. They conjured a childhood nothing like the one he remembered, that failed to anticipate the life he lived now. I Live a Life Like Yours is Grue's beautiful, groundbreaking search for a literary language that could better tell his story. Writing with clear-eyed wisdom and bracing frankness, Grue folds insights from art, film and literature into an expansive account of who he was expected to be, and who he became. If it is a story of frustration with negligent institutions and the pain of stigma, it is also a story of the potential of acceptance and the gift of family. Unflinching, yet always compassionate, I Live a Life Like Yours is a fierce and tender reckoning with what it means to live as a vulnerable body.
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