How I became a human being : a disabled man's quest for independence / Mark O'Brien with Gillian Kendall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Brien, Mark, 1949-1999.

Contributor:

Kendall, Gillian.

ebrary, Inc.

Series:

Wisconsin studies in autobiography

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

O'Brien, Mark, 1949-1999--Health.

O'Brien, Mark.

O'Brien, Mark, 1949-1999.

People with disabilities--Rehabilitation--Wisconsin.

People with disabilities.

Disabled Persons--rehabilitation.

Poliomyelitis--rehabilitation.

People with disabilities--Rehabilitation.

Health.

Wisconsin.

Medical Subjects:

Disabled Persons--rehabilitation.

Poliomyelitis--rehabilitation.

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 263 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, [2003]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

In September 1955 six-year-old Mark O'Brien moved his arms and legs for the last time. He came out of a coma to find himself enclosed from the neck down in an iron lung, the machine in which he would live for much of the rest of his life.

Available for the first time in paperback, How I Became a Human Being is O'Brien's account of his struggles to lead an independent life despite a lifelong disability. In 1955 he contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed from the neck down. O'Brien describes growing up without the use of his limbs, his adolescence struggling with physical rehabilitation and suffering the bureaucracy of hospitals and institutions, and his adult life as an independent student and writer. Despite his physical limitations, O'Brien crafts a narrative that is as rich and vivid as the life he led. Book jacket.

Contents:

Preface

Prologue

pt. 1. Dependent

1. Dorchester (1949-1955)

2. Polio (1955-1957)

3. Stoughton (1957-1966)

4. The move (January-April 1966)

5. Sacramento (1966-1976)

6. Kaiser (September 1976)

7. Fairmont (September 1976-September 1978)

pt. 2. Independent 00 8. Year one (September 1978-June 1979)

9. English major (June 1979-December 1980)

10. Fiat lux (January 1981-June 1982)

11. Graduate school (July 1982-June 1983)

12. A Berkeley life (June 1983-July 1991)

13. The sex surrogate (1985)

14. Poet and journalist (circa 1983-1995)

15. The blue terror (July-August 1991)

Afterword (August 1991-May 1997).

Notes:

Electronic reproduction. Palo Alto, Calif. Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Online version: O'Brien, Mark, 1949-1999. How I became a human being.

ISBN:

9780299184339

0299184331

Publisher Number:

99970140257

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.