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Author Gasner looks back on a life of turmoil, discouragement, and challenge that led her, step by often painful step, to a sense of acceptance, enhancement, and courage. Her powerful, poignant memoir begins when, at age sixteen, she was forced to confront the fact that, in many ways, her physical abilities were weakening. She had taken a fall, which was presaged by a noticeable increase of swaying and staggering; she’d begun dropping things, and her handwriting had become unsteady, almost unreadable. Testing by neurological experts indicated Friedreich’s ataxia, a form of muscular dystrophy. There was no known cure, and life expectancy, as she would learn, was no more than the mid-twenties.
Despite this, Gasner attended college. Her narrative creates for readers a blend of vivid happenings for girls of her age, including the pursuit of and by boys, deep bonds with other girls, zest for pop music, excessive alcohol consumption, and the struggle to survive academically. Her disabilities made the educational environment exhausting and exasperating at a time when there were few accommodations made for disabled students. After a first difficult year of college, she persevered. She worked as a DJ and later organized events for bands coming to campus. Though she disdained the idea of using a wheelchair, she would learn that doing so gave her greater freedom and a shared empathy with and from others. Especially significant was her meeting a noted music star, David Matthews, who took a kindly interest in her situation. His concern for her needs brought funding for a specially equipped van, allowing her fresh opportunities. With such support, underpinned by her undeniable grit and persistence, Gasner would become a spokesperson for the disability community..
Gasner, with a BA in English and a master’s degree in recreation, is now an advocate on behalf of those with disabilities, a field that has broadened in the ensuing years since her early diagnose so that schools and public institutions now demonstrate a greater awareness of the attentions for which she advocates and so deftly describes in her recollections. She has fulfilled her own wish to rise above her limitations, becoming a notable figure in the wider disability community, while focusing as well on those with her precise difficulties through FARA (Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance). Her memoir gives scope not only to her personal struggles but also to her anger at observing restraints often placed on others with disabilities. Her writing conveys a grasp of the ways that her determination helped her to rise above what could have been seen as insuperable obstacles. In her book’s epilogue, she offers the statement, “I’m disabled and proud of it,” exhorting readers to develop similar self-respect for who they are and what they can accomplish. Gasner’s autobiography provides an outstanding study of pertinent issues of human development, inviting expanded awareness for all readers. It is an intimate, honest view from someone who has experienced those issues from the inside, offering achievable aspirations and shimmering inspiration.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review