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Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio

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Gary Presley's humanity shines through in this memoir of a half century of living with the aftereffects of polio. He drives a wheelchair and gains independence from it; he works for a living and is married to the love of his life. Now in his 60s, Presley seems to have found wisdom and a degree of serenity, but it has not always been so. The essays that comprise this well-written book make clear the trouble his disability has caused for himself and others, and the pain and anger he has felt. Yet Seven Wheelchairs is striking in the author's lack of self-pity and victimhood. In fact, he disdains pity from anyone, whether from a stranger on the street or from his parish priest.

Presley's painful honesty occasionally made me wince, but his writing is professional and his story is powerful. I highly recommend this book for the general reader.

I've been fortunate to read bits and pieces, essays and writings of the author's for several years as a fellow member of the Internet Writing Workshop, including much of what is his memoir. But it wasn't until I sat down to read the finished product that I realized what an emotional and insightful read it would be. It is a given that this is stellar prose. The writing alone is enough reason to buy the book and read -- and reread it.

But the truth and power of those words. He answers the questions I never thought to ask beginning with the memory of those last steps before polio took away his legs. He told of being confined in an iron lung, not with pity or melodrama, but through the eyes of a devastated, angry teen age boy who was confused and frightened. A boy who had gone from working on his lay up shots to a non-entity swallowed up by a machine. And we move forward with him. We see him making an independent living, but more than that we see him coming to terms with his physical limitations, learning the landscape, what it means to live with disabilities in plain sight, in mainstream culture. We see him moving beyond the anger to find something we all wish we could find -- his true niche where he belongs and can accept and be accepted for the man he is, not for the equipment he must use.

Since this is written in connected essays, much of the problem that arises in first memoir and fiction is left behind. No awkward transitions, no tap dancing to get from one important moment to the next. It is a tightly written, powerful book that takes readers inside of the world of disabilities as none before. And inside of the life of one very human, but determined man.

I met Gary Presley when I joined the Internet Writing Workshop. His writings, his self-deprecating sense of humor, his truth, and his generous supportive ways drew me to him. When my husband became disabled, Gary jumped right in and helped us find our way through that alien culture called 'disability.' Who knew better this new landscape than a man who had been wheeling through it for nearly a half-century!?

He's never maudlin nor melodramatic. It is a book that can be read in pieces or as a whole and the writing itself stands strong alongside the best. A must read for anyone who knows someone living a life fraught with disabilities. A must read for anyone who has ever seen a person in a wheelchair and looked away.

Worth reading? Absolutely!

If your legs were knocked out from under you at 17, how would you live your life? The author of this memoir came to realize that he had a choice, and although it was not a quick or painless lesson, he came to understand that being "a crip" physically does not necessitate being one emotionally.

Describing his life from the vantage point of a wheel chair-- "boob high to the world-- Presley shares a fiercely honest look at the difficulties he faced when polio kicked him back to a second "infancy" at age 17. No excuses here, though. Presley is as unsparing of himself as the disease was with his body.

In addition to discussing the mechanical logistics of managing life from a wheelchair, Presley shares years of introspection letting the reader in on a private world of fear and trust, love and dependency, prejudice and pride.

We're invited to ride on the back of his wheelchairs, from the first grudging roll when life was endured and despair, anger, and passivity prevailed, to the triumphant journey on his latest machine that allows him the freedom he values. Better still we meet the love of his life-- his wife Belinda-- and see how their love and shared faith have trumped disability.

An emotional ride, but well worth it!

I'm almost afraid to write anything about this book. I mean this deeply personal memoir displays such a stew of mixed emotions and feelings, but leans, I think, most heavily toward anger and even rage. And with good reason, certainly. Gary Presley contracted polio at the age of 17 in 1959, which was nearly five years after the Salk vaccine had come along, nearly eradicating the virus in the U.S. Presley's illness was a kind of health care fluke - a live virus vaccine that gave him polio, rather than protecting him from it. So yeah. I'd have been pissed off too. But it wasn't this awful accident so much that made Presley so mad, and kept him that way for much of the next thirty years or so. Because he kinda made peace with that part of it. No, it was - and often still is - the attitudes of healthy people toward disabled, handicapped and crippled people that really kept him angry. For much of the book he rages against such attitudes that for so many years often made him feel something less than human, that "objectified" him and others like him, i.e. made him an object of pity. And I can't argue with those feelings of his, with his anger, his rage. I cringed inwardly throughout much of this book. Because I have been one of those people that made Presley so angry, that also caused him untold grief and even despair that he would ever be recognized as simply a human being with all the same hopes, fears, dreams and emotions that we all have. I mean I'm really torn here, trying to figure out my reaction to this book. So I'm going to try to make just a couple of points. (1) The prose here is absolutely first-rate. This is obviously a guy who has worked hard at learning the craft through literally years of writing, at first largely for his own purposes, but finally (thank God) to share his story with a larger audience. (2) This is not just a story about what it's like to be crippled. (I even shrink a bit at using that particular word. But Presley himself has used it in many and various forms here, so I'll risk it.) Nope. This is a story of a whole life, including what it was like to be an army brat who never had much chance to make close and lasting friendships. As a consequence, he had no lifelong friends to fall back on when polio struck. Hence years of isolation in which his main social contacts were his parents and his much younger brother. Which brings me to number (3). This is also a book about family. And although Presley's parents might be construed today as rather unenlightened about how to cope with a severely disabled child, Presley makes it clear that he knows that they did the best they could, and acted faithfully and lovingly as his only caregivers for nearly 25 years. (4) This is also a love story, and a most unique one at that. Because Gary Presley never expected to find someone to love, and someone who would love him back - not after nearly thirty years of "flying a wheelchair," as he puts it. But he did. And that discovery, that ... what? That good fortune, perhaps, changed the tone of the last part of the book. My wince and grimace relaxed a bit from the time Gary met Belinda. And I'm so very happy they found each other. Hmm ... that was more than a "couple" points, wasn't it? Anyway, if you want to know what goes on inside the mind of a quadriplegic - or at least get some small idea of what it might be like - then 7 WHEELCHAIRS is a good place to start. As a review, this feels very clumsy, but what the hell. I tried. This is not an easy book to read, but it is a damn fine piece of work. - Tim Bazzett, author of LOVE, WAR & POLIO: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF YOUNG BILL PORTEOUS

More than a book about one man's ability to cope with the disabling effects of polio, this is a human story about a person's journey through life, remaking and redefining himself along the way. It's not an easy journey--we watch Gary grow from a helpless toddler of seventeen, dependent, petulant and whiney, to a man, full of humor, love and life. His account of falling in love and, more, accepting love is nothing less than beautiful.

This is a remarkably honest account of a life.

Gary Presley took his last physical steps in 1959 when he was only 17-years- old. He contracted Polio from the Salk vaccine. It's ironic that he got it from the last in the series of immunizations meant to protect him from the very disease he contracted and it happened the very year that the Sabin vaccine, much safer than the Salk, was trial tested. Since then Presley has used a wheelchair to get around. In fact, he's gone through seven of them. Today, he is a writer and mentor, an editor of the Internet Review of Books, and an activist in the disability community.

It's been a long journey.

His memoir Seven Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio, published this year by University of Iowa Press, tells the story of his pilgrimage from innocent victim to angry and defiant adult, and ultimately to an accepting, if somewhat battered, philosopher. In his own words:

"...cynical and unfeeling, a burnt-out case, which I attempted''attempt''to explain away by saying I survived then and I survive now by mating an ignorant combination off existentialism and stoicism, by becoming a peculiar bastardized oddity rolling about the world, forever dependent."

I found this book fascinating on many levels. I am Critical Care nurse by training and the book is an in depth look backward at the treatment of Polio. I am old enough to remember Stryker frames, used to rotate paralysis patients in the ICU, but the Iron Lung was obsolete long before my nursing career began. Presley's descriptions of "the can" and the treatment he received in hospital are riveting.

I know from personal experience that many events that happened in his hospital stay would not be tolerated today. Nursing has come a long way since the 1960s. Simple acts such as turning a patient on a regular schedule would be done regardless of how reluctant or combative the patient might be, and Presley, by his own admission, was no easy patient. Anger and helplessness make for combative and frustrated patient. Sudden and irrevocable paralysis, a sentence.

In the years I took care of new paraplegics and quads I always tried to engage them to talk about their frustrations. Perhaps it takes as long as it has taken Presley to get to the root of the issues, to open up and speak the truth about himself as well as the world of "Crips."

Not only does he give us a look at treatments that now seem antiquated, but he uses his memoir to underscore the importance of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. How it changed, not only his world, but the world of thousands upon thousands of disabled people in the United States. Presley uses the words Gimp and Crip to describe himself and his fellow travelers, but don't ever let him hear you use the expression "wheelchair bound." For him and others in the disability world wheelchairs liberate rather than imprison.

But fundamentally this memoir is a universal look into what disables us and what empowers us, regardless of whether we ride a wheelchair or not. As we travel the road with Presley we begin to see ourselves in his agony and frustration. We are all crippled to a degree by whatever limits our lives. What we do with that is how we ultimately live. Simply put, in Presley's words: "Of course, it is madness to regret what cannot be changed, and I now have learned to keep the madman locked away where he cannot hurt anyone."

This is the trap door where we store our anger and blame once we have the maturity to understand that we are responsible for how we choose to live our lives. By the end of the memoir we watch Gary Presley find work, love, parenthood, and a life without rancor. "The paralyzed man miraculously found the ability to turn the other cheek, "'to live each day fully and gracefully.'"

Some people might be afraid to pick this book up. Those same people might also be afraid to look hard into their own lives. Seven Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio is a book that is educational on a political and social level as well as a personal one.

It is well worth a read.

Gary Presley offers readers a unique philosophy about life and from an even more distinctive vantage point -- his nearly fifty years spent "with my ass planted in a wheelchair."

In this no-nonsense recounting of his journey through polio--which he contracted in 1959, at the vulnerable age of seventeen--and its after-affects, Gary invites readers into his struggles with isolation, despair, and guilt; and then, to celebrate with him as he comes to accept his life for what it is. Carefully-crafted sentences reveal how he evolved from seeing himself as an "unwanted rolling responsibility" to one who "rolls through life" and "refuses to be confined." Any sadness readers may feel at the injustice of Gary's plight is overshadowed when reading about the joy he finds in his marriage and the pride he now takes in referring to himself as Crip and Gimp.

The first half of the book details the days, months and early years after polio. Readers unfamiliar with the times will come away with a better understanding of the iron lung, the respiratory chest shell, the rocking bed and frog breathing. Then, Gary's writing segues into thought-provoking essays about living, dying, and society's attitude toward the disabled.

I found myself near tears when I read of society's treatment (and lack thereof) of the disabled before the American Disabilities Act was passed, yet cheering as Gary comes to the understanding that it is not, nor has it ever been, the wheelchair which defines him:

"Sometimes living disabled is about asking someone for help ... Other times it's looking on things with a cold eye and letting patience evolve into stoicism, so that you can tolerate what you can't change ... And occasionally, it's about moving on, no matter what anyone thinks."

Once you start reading, you won't want to put 7 Wheelchairs down, but allow ample time for digestion and reflection. Gary's thoughtful phrases deserve to be savored.

Reading the earlier reviews, I can see that anyone perusing this page in Amazon will have a pretty good idea of Gary Presley's basic story as far as a life, after the age of 17, following polio, in a wheelchair, goes.

In this quite easy to read, if difficult to live, history, Gary Presley uses words that make some of us a little uncomfortable: disabled, handicapped, invalid (and what a word that is, suggesting someone is not "valid"), paralysed, isolated, frightened. Another troubling word that pops up: normalcy.

One might think: "Well, that's all about life in seven wheelchairs."

Listen: Who among us cannot apply these words, even the terrifying "normalcy", to his or her life?

This is why I particularly enjoyed and benefitted from Gary Presley's account: There are Riding Lessons in "Seven Wheelchairs" for the likes of me.

It was interesting, and pleasing, to find that Presley's style is, at first, simple, untroubled (and untroubling), and has almost the naivete of a youth about it. The descriptions of falling to the earth, of being slotted into an iron lung, of being fitted for breathing apparatuses, at the age of 17, are fresh. There is no roughness of the man of 65 in it.

As the autobiography, for that is what this must be in many ways, progresses, the style and content matures. When Gary finds love the writing really is a serious read, you linger over every line, liking it all so much. You feel he has grown, the book itself, the medium, has been a transport.

The book itself: Mine has 226 pages, I read it in two days at a leisurely pace. It is printed on pleasant paper, and the University of Iowa Press that published it is committed to preserving natural resources, and that's all worth noting. The book weighs about 420g, so you can figure out how much postage you'll need to send a copy to a friend this coming holiday gifting season, and it shouldn't be onerous. Of course, Amazon can do that for you.

Finally, it seems to me that more than a few young people in their mid- to late-teens, say aged 17, could find this book a bit of a primer for life. Parents: Leave a copy on your son's bed.

When I was in my early twenties, I read, for the first time, "The Rack" by A.E. Ellis, and "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann. Both novels, of course, and dealing with something that even 40 years ago we didn't trouble ourselves over much (tuberculosis). In my case, it was the musings of the characters, the troubled love lives, the frustrations, the breathing lessons, the psychologies, the philosophies, that kept me reading (and eventually re-reading) The Rack and The Magic Mountain.

I don't know whether people can be arsed to read those particular books now, but "Seven Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio" by Gary Presley deals with things "that other people get, not me" in our lifetime. It's an important book, makes you take stock, look at your feet and the door, and it might give you the push to get a move on.

Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio presents an unique opportunity to travel with seventeen year old Gary Presley to adulthood with polio as his life long companion.

The memoir opens with a shot in the arm, an injection to ward off polio. Seven days later life as the teenager has known it is gone. Presley and the mechanical devices necessary to sustain his life vie for domination. The reader sees a boy struggling with a gamut of emotions, struggling to understand what has happened, to accept the changes polio has visited on him.

The author's voice is powerful, commanding, and the reader sees Gary Presley, the man, emerge. The wheelchair, the apparatus to maintain life is present, but it fades into the background.

We see the author meet Belinda, his wife, watch as the relationship grows into love and, in time, marriage.

We come away with a deeper understanding and knowledge of the obstacles the author faced and recognize the courage it took to triumph.

Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio

By rejecting the well-meaning pity-party typified by "Jerry's Kids," author Gary Presley both empowers and challenges "disabled" people to live a fully-realized life. In the process he challenges "abled" people to set aside their prejudice and see beyond the wheelchair to the man who rides in it.

At its core this is a love story. Surviving at times on little more than the strength of his family's unconditional love, Presley ultimately learns to love a wife, her sons, and -- most importantly -- himself. With remarkable honesty and insight, the author strips away his early pretensions and rationalizations, and delivers a powerful lesson on the dangers of pity, indulgence and denial, and the redeeming power of passion, faith and love.

Using a style of prose mercifully free of gimmickry and clutter, "7 Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio," ushers the reader into a world populated by gimps and crips in a time before sidewalk cutouts and wheelchair ramps. If you've ever been tempted to borrow your grandmother's handicapped parking permit, you should read this book. It should be mandatory reading for anyone preparing for a life in the fields of health, ministry or social services.