Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio

This is a fascinating read, both as a primer on the nearly forgotten scourge that polio was up until fifty years ago, and also as a look into a tumultuous and difficult life. Anne Finger wasn't just coping with being a polio victim from early childhood, she also had to deal with a violently abusive parent in her father, who may well have been an undiagnosed bipolar/schizophrenic. Finger describes in frightening detail her long-suppressed memories of being choked and beaten by her father, behavior which was ignored or rationalized by her "enabler" mother. She also notes that her own clinical depression and suicidal tendencies as a young adult may have been inevitable, given her upbringing. In spite of all this, she continued to struggle for understanding of her parents' behavior, linking it often to her "imperfection" of being a polio from early childhood. There is much critically important information on polio - its history and near-eradication - here too, making it an important document in the literature of the disease. Finger has obviously done her homework, making numerous references to other talented polio memoirists and historians such as Leonard Kriegel, Charles Mee, Tony Gould, Peg Kehret, Daniel Wilson, John Paul and Wilfred Sheed, as well as other lesser known writers. This is an important and eminently readable book. - Tim Bazzett, author of Love, War & Polio