Body, Remember: A Memoir [Mass Market Paperback]

Kenny Fries (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998

Body, Remember is a deeply affecting memoir that revolves around a mystery: at age 35, poet Kenny Fries wanted to discover what could be learned about the history of his body, and the map of physical and psychic scars with which he had lived since infancy. He began only with a description his father had given him. At his birth "each leg was no bigger than his finger; each leg was twisted like a pretzel; each leg had no arch to separate leg from foot; each leg was dimpled above what would have been my ankle." Fries turned to long-buried medical records, reconstructing a record of his disability just as his body had been reconstructed over countless surgeries. He unearthed family secrets and looked again at the echoing memories of past relationships. In Body, Remember we meet and come to know intimately Frie's observant Jewish family and neighbors in Brooklyn; his doctor, who broke with colleagues and insisted that he needn't undergo amputation of both his legs; the brother who resented his disabled sibling; the men who awakened Frie's sexuality and initiated him into a lifelong questioning of the meaning of beauty; and the community of disabled people who prompted some difficult questions about our world's demands on human life and physical being. Body, Remember ultimately tells a story about connection. This memoir is a redemptive and passionate testimony to one man's search for the sources of identity and difference.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Kenny Fries, noted poet, critic, and essayist, has produced a moving and memorable memoir of what it is like to live with a body you are told is less than perfect. Fries was born with incompletely formed legs, a congenital birth defect that had no scientific name but entailed multiple surgeries just to partially correct. In Body, Remember, Fries, with patience and forbearance, travels back through his life--examining medical records, family papers, his own and his parents' memories--to uncover how he became who he is today. Fries's search is, in part, a mystery not simply because he uncovers many details of his early life unspoken within the family, but through its charting of the discovery of his sexual desire and identity. While much of Fries's memoir is a beautifully written elucidation of what it means to be "different," its fire and heart comes from its author's growing sense of self and dignity as he examines and learns to understand the scars on his psyche as well as on his body. --Michael Bronski

From Publishers Weekly

Fries is a 36-year-old Massachusetts poet and playwright, very much concerned with identity, and as a disabled person, gay and Jewish, he uses this memoir to locate himself. He was born with an unnamed defect that left his legs and feet deformed, and his disability commands most of his attention. He takes an appropriately complex view of his search for himself, calling into question through his own experiences the notion of gay identity when it does not seem to include the disabled, and, on a trip to Israel, the notion of Jewishness when it does not allow for homosexuality. Fries comes to no conclusions about his triple personas, or about the primacy of any one of them, though he does achieve some equanimity, and the end of the book finds him in the middle of his third long-term relationship, yet becoming less and less able-bodied with age. Fries's story is unusual, but his telling of it is clouded by a lack of perspective.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Plume (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452276713
• ISBN-13: 978-0452276710
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,942,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Emotional And Fulfilling Read, March 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Body, Remember: A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

Kenny Fries says what he needs to without being dramatic and there is no subtle "pity me" to his memoir. He is honest without being brutal and allows those with whom he retains differences to maintain their dignity. He helped me to view my own disability as an opportunity and for this I am grateful.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Completely Out & Honest, December 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Body, Remember: A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

Not a false note in this book. Takes the reader on a journey from sympathy to admiration. Helped me face some lesser challenges.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Seemed like poetry.., October 20, 2007

By 

Barb F. - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Body, Remember: A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

This book started out reading like poetry--but as I read I got lost in the muddle that was the life of the author. I really thought this book would be good--but I couldn't bring myself to finish it. As I read further I remember that I had begun this book some time ago and didn't finish it then either. BAH!