Break Out: Finding Freedom When You Don't Quite Fit the Mold (Paperback)

by James R. Hasse (Author) "The other night I had a nightmare about patrolling the jungles of Vietnam..." (more)
Key Phrases: Heartland Dairies, Jim Hasse, George Wallace (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
51 stories about how a disabled person views life by Rosemary E. Musachio, Editor

In 1965 James R. Hasse graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsins School of Journalism with a B.S. degree in journalism and advertising. After graduation, Hasse joined Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative where he climbed the ladder to communication director and then vice president of communication.

After serving for twenty-eight years with Dairies Cooperative, he decided to form his own consulting business, Hasse Communication Consulting.

Pretty impressive, especially when you consider he has cerebral palsy--like yours truly. Although Hasses disability isnt quite as severe as mine (he uses crutches and has slurred speech while Im in a wheelchair and cant talk at all), it still has affected his life quite a bit. In fact, he has written a book called Break Out: When You Dont Quite The Mold where he gives insights about how he and others perceive his cerebral palsy. Unlike other books written by and about individuals with disabilities, Hasses doesnt amplify his struggles. Instead, he undertakes a retrospective tone throughout the book, making us aware of all our strengths and weaknesses.

For readers with and without disabilities, Break Out makes us look within ourselves to discover our potential and our room for improvement. Although it may not wow you, each of the fifty-one stories will give you different perspectives on how a disabled person looks upon life. After you read it, you will be either amused, enlightened, inspired, or all three. But most of all, youll discover that people with disabilities are just ordinary folks who want to succeed in life. -- Sun Newspapers

I was hooked

I ordered Jim's book and am just now finishing it. I can't say that I would describe it as 'inspirational' per se, (but then I'm not all that enthused about 'inspirational' literature), but I did find it very enlightening, entertaining, and thought provoking. There are a series of questions at the end of some of the chapters which invite the reader to be introspective in regard to serious issues which face not only the disabled, but all people.

The book is extremely well written and the author's writing style is very engaging. I found myself identifying with some of the humorous predicaments he found himself in, as well as those uncomfortable moments when a disability can tend to make one's approach to inter-personal relationships more difficult than might otherwise be the case. The stories reflect the author's life in a sensible manner without that distasteful, sappy, 'victim' tonality which some literature contains.

I was intrigued by what I read at (Jims) web site - there are sample chapters there. Those were enough to get me to purchase the book. I was not disappointed, although, if I had to make one suggestion, I found that some of the chapters seemed unfinished. That is not to say they were not well written, but when I turned the page, looking for more, I found there was no more! I wanted to know more, and perhaps that's a good recommendation because I was hooked.

Good writing! -- SusanG, 8/19/97

Reaches many by Donna Woodward

... In ("Break Out"), Jim balances poignancy with humor and captures the reader with his honesty. He speaks of his successes without boasting, his pain without indulgence, his relationships without pretense. By telling his own story, Jim reaches many. All of us at one time or another, "dont quite fit the mold ..." -- The Wrting Academy News, Winter, 1997

Product Description
Break Out: Finding Freedom When You Dont Quite Fit The Mold is a modern memoir of 51 short stories about what it means to be presumed too different in a society which values conformity.

The author's experiences could have involved anyone who, due to race, stature, weight, age or sexual preference, doesnt match societys norms. He just happens to be a white businessman with cerebral palsy.

By identifying assumptions about himself and the presumptions others have about him, his stories provide a map for dealing effectively with differences.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Patricia M Mote Pub (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963308378
• ISBN-13: 978-0963308375
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,472,938 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What It Means to Be Presumed Different, November 26, 2000

By	James R. Hasse (Seven Fields, Pa.) - See all my reviews

"Break Out" is a modern literary memoir of 51 short stories about what it means to be presumed different. It's an easy read for raising disability awareness among family members, friends, co-workers, students. As a book club selection, it stimulates discussion and generates insight about false assumptions. As a collection of personal-experience stories, it illustrates the importance of addressing common presumptions in diversity training efforts.

Jim Hasse was born with cerebral palsy in 1943. The 51 true stories that make up his book, most of them only three or four pages long, are all from his personal experience. But that does not mean they speak only about the challenges of living with his particular disability - or even that they are exclusively concerned with issues of the physically disabled. Each vignette brings out some truth about how people who "stand out" struggle for acceptance in the midst of society's reactions which include discomfort, indifference, embarrassment, incomprehension, condescension, insensitivity - and sometimes, well-intentioned but over-done solicitude. One touching story involving Jim's wife brings out the thoughtlessness that is often shown toward people who must struggle to do what others do easily. Pam, with a milder form of cerebral palsy, has some language difficulties because of hearing loss in one ear. To compensate, whenever she is assigned to read Scripture in worship, she practices throughout the preceding week. One Sunday, however, she found that the text had been changed. Still intending to read, she spoke to the pastor, explaining that she had not practiced this text and asking for the correct pronunciation of a certain name. But when the time came for the reading and she was about to stand up, another woman rose to read. Apparently the pastor has appointed a substitute reader without informing Pam.

Jim, a perceptive observer of his own behavior as well as that of others, turns the tables on himself in one anecdote. He tells about having to squeeze past a very overweight man sitting at the bar in order to get to the men's room in a restaurant. Maneuvering through the too-narrow space was very difficult for Jim on crutches. After making the journey both ways, he turned at the exit to look back - and caught himself staring rudely at the man's obesity, in the same way others had often stared at Jim.

Although all of the stores in "Break Out" are Jim's experiences, the book is not autobiography or even a chronology of is life. The anecdotes jump back and forth from his college career, to his high school experiences, to his first date with Pam, to his retirement from an executive position with Wisconsin Dairies, to his first job after graduation, to a trip to East Africa etc. However, the stories are grouped under thematic headings, with a list of questions following each section; for example, after Chapter 6, "Obtaining Balance": "What experiences have helped you form your perception of human nature?" "What do you do to reconcile the difference between perception and reality in awkward situations?" A reader doesn't have to be disabled to have answers to questions like these!

Other questions we Telephone Workers of the Emergency/Assistance/Referral Service might ask as we read "Break Out": Do I recognize anyone here, among the many friends and strangers who Jim includes in his stories? And am I here? How do I look (or not look) at a person who is obviously "different" - in a wheelchair or on crutches, or unusually short or tall or heavy or thin? What preconceptions do I have about a person whose speech is difficult to understand because of a disability? (One night in college, someone who was trying to telephone Jim's roommate thought Jim, who answered, was drunk.)

But you can read Jim's book simply to enter into the well-lived life of a very balanced person who has made the best of what life gave him. The epilogue is a quote from the Gospel of John:

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'

"'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.'"

Dr. Nancy E. James, Editor, The Inner Ear, Fall 1999