Jan Grue

This memoir by Jan Grue, translated from Norwegian by Becky Crook, is a sort of stream-of-consciousness contemplation of his life. As a child, Grue was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, and for the most part he requires a wheelchair to help him get around. He talks about growing up with a disability, societal biases and expectations, his family’s wrangling with social services to allow him to live a normal life, and how he navigates being a father.

The story is told in an interesting format: one very long “chapter”, but lots of short paragraphs, with clinical notes and relevant quotations from literature and music sprinkled throughout the text. It could be read in one go in an afternoon, or read over several sessions. Recommended for those who like memoirs told in a non-traditional format and those who want to read stories of lived experience with disability.… (mer)

Jan Grue has lived in and out of a wheelchair his whole life. He is an academic and fiercely intellectual, closely examining every aspect of his life through the prism of his condition, often informed by theory but also told with artistic sensibility. The words and ideas are compressed, a world in a sentence, as in poetry. Much hinges on challenges with moving around - schools, other countries, airplanes, buildings. It appears he is self-defined by his disability even though he tries hard to over come it, a contradiction, but an understandable one when this is all you have known. As he seeks to achieve ableness, we seek to understand disability through his story.… (mer)