Lois Keith was thirty-five, with a successful career, two daughters, and a partner of many years, when she was hit by a car and paralyzed from the waist down. Over the next few years, she discovered both a community of disabled people and a paucity of literature and public understanding about their lives. "What Happened to You?" is a candid, powerful, and often hilarious collection of fiction, essays, and poetry by women with disabilities. Coming from a wide range of backgrounds and ages, impairments and experiences, the thirty-six women included in the book write on everything from access to abuse, equality to equanimity, in what may well be the definitive volume on living with a disability.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
After becoming disabled at age 35, Lois Keith found herself "living in a society which had permission to exclude me from things I had grown to consider my right." She learned writing gave her relief, pleasure, and the key to a new community.
The essays, fiction, and poetry she gathered for What Happened to You? share differing experiences of women who are disabled or ill. A dancer who broke her neck performing talks of loathing the sense of being on show in the "lofty heights" of her wheelchair until she learned to dance quite differently. One woman gives voice to the undercurrents of anger, uncertainty, fear, and humiliation that colon cancer visits upon her. A disabled adoptive mother finds black humor seeking someone in similar circumstances through the personal ads only to be matched with an "athletic outdoor woman who enjoys hill-walking, climbing, and water sports."
Not all of the writing is polished, but most of it comes from the heart and rings true quite loudly. --Francesca Coltrera
From Library Journal
Disabled women face even greater obstacles than do women generally, and physically challenged lesbians and women of color deal with yet another set of problems. This anthology of prose, poetry, fiction, and personal memoirs by 36 disabled British women provides an interesting view of their life experiences. The women speak about child rearing, relationships, discrimination, inaccessible buildings, and abuse by caregivers. Full of anger, pain, rage, hope, warmth, humor, and politics, their work shows readers daily life with its struggles, failures, and triumphs. This book empowers all women by giving them a sense of community and showing their strength, courage, and dignity to the world. A unique and interesting anthology; recommended for women's studies collections.?Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
universally touching,
By A Customer
This review is from: 'What Happened to You?': Writing by Disabled Women (Paperback)
I loved this book so much. I thought it was so wonderful that it was inclusive of women from many different cultural backgrounds and with many different disabilities. I was especially appreciative that they included mental illness in this book "Agorophobia:letting go," by Pam Mason, because so many times it is brushed off and blamed on the victim. I would highly recommend this book to any woman who knows what its like to go through lifes ups and downs.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strong Voices,
By A Customer
This review is from: 'What Happened to You?': Writing by Disabled Women (Paperback)
If you are a woman with a disability, know a woman with a disability, or care about women with disabilities, this is a must read. Out of all of the anthologies written by women, this is the most accessible. If you are looking for a gift for someone you love, don't pass it up.
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