A Nearly Normal Life A Memoir

In this "wise and engaging memoir," the acclaimed playwright and historian recalls coming of age in the 1950s as a polio survivor ( Chicago Tribune). In the summer of 1953, Charles Mee author was a carefree, athletic boy of fourteen. But after he collapsed during a school dance one night, he was suddenly bedridden, drifting in & out of consciousness, as his body disintegrated into a shadow of its former self. He had been stricken with spinal polio. When Mee emerged from the grip of the disease, he was confronted with a life change so enormous that it challenged his beliefs and his very sense of self. His once normal life, filled with baseball, swimming pools, and dreams of girls, had been irreversibly altered. A Nearly Normal Life is a textured portrait of life in the fifties, a time when America and its fighting spirit collided with this terrible disease. Both funny and profound, Mee unravels the mysteries of youth in a Cold War climate, and shows how his self-recognition as a disabled outsider heightened his brilliant talents.