The Horizontal Woman: The Story of a Body in Exile [Hardcover]

Suzanne Berger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 1996

In the mundane act of picking up her child, Suzanne Berger incurs a severe back injury that leaves her suddenly and dramatically disabled. Because the muscles for sitting are torn and using a wheelchair for any length of time is impossible, she finds herself literally horizontal. In this dazzling memoir, Berger charts her course from this almost completely horizontal existence to partial mobility and finally to tentative uprightness and walking. With vigor, insight, and black humor, Berger portrays the phantasmagoric universe caused by her unusual physical placement in the world. She captures the emotional vicissitudes of confinement and chronic pain, seismic changes in personal relationships, mind/body unity and disparity, and greatly modified parenthood in a series of mesmerizing stories about everything from blissful aquatherapy sessions in a rehabilitation hospital to raging tirades addressed to Mr. Rogers from the TV room floor. In the tradition of Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Poet Suzanne E. Berger's life was dramatically and horrifyingly changed when she bent to pick up her child and something at the base of her spine tore so out of joint that she collapsed "like a puppet unstrung." The problem was never clearly pinned down, but Berger was: she spent the next six years flat on her back until she was finally able to move and sit by herself. This is the anguished story of her plight, of the torments and conflicted feelings she bore, and of her concerns for her child and family. In this chronicle she successfully communicates the pain--physical and emotional--that she faced as a "horizonatal woman."

From Publishers Weekly

While bending down to pick up her infant daughter, Berger suffered a freak spinal injury that kept her flat on her back for seven years. Initially, use of a wheelchair was impossible, because sitting up for more than five minutes was too painful. Through courage, determination, rehabilitation therapy and the support of her husband, she learned to walk again, and this intensely lyrical, introspective, deeply moving journal charts her triumph over years of confinement, isolation, depression and outpatient treatment. A Pushcart Prize-winning poet and freelance writer, Berger sensitively records her life's cataclysmic changes. As friends deserted her, she coped with chronic, grinding pain, cooked while supine and worried about instilling fear and panic in her growing daughter. Those affected by sudden injury will find her story inspirational. Translation/film/audio rights: International Creative.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1ST edition (August 23, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395726689
• ISBN-13: 978-0395726686
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,380,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, well written account, November 19, 2001

By 

Ward Stradlater "libraryguy" (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Horizontal Woman: The Story of a Body in Exile (Hardcover)

Berger writes a gripping story of a life gone out of control. Perhaps the most overwhelming part of her devastating injury is that she is failed by medical professionals--she has no official diagnosis--nothing to work toward, no hope, no meaningful treatment. Inspirational.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horizontaly boring!, April 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Horizontal Woman: The Story of a Body in Exile (Hardcover)

I choose to read this book to broaden my horizons. I work as a nurse, and being able to understand someone who has a chronic illness, and their coping mechanisms, was important to me. This book was a disapointment. I felt that the plot did not flow well, and I was often wondering at what point was this specific plot element going on. The author was very unclear about what her medical regimen was supposed to be, especially in the home envinronment. Some times she can walk or sit up, and other times she is confined to laying on the floor examining the carpet lint, and feeling sorry for herself. It's was never clear to me what her abilities/disabilities were. She instead, focuses on her pain without telling a very good story. This reads like someone's poorly written, whiney story that spans several years of life.