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Missing pieces: a chronicle of living with a disability
- Author:
- ZOLA Irving Kenneth
- Publisher:
- Temple University Press
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 246p.
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, PA
The author started out in the role of a social scientist on a seven-day excursion to acquaint himself with an extraordinary experiment in living, Het Dorp, one of the few places in the world designed to promote "the optimum happiness" of those with severe physical disabilities. Neither a medial center nor a nursing home, Het Dorp is a village in the western-most part of the Netherlands. What began as a sociological attempt to describe this unusual setting became, through the author's growing awareness, what can only be called a socio-autobiography. Resuming his prior dependence on a wheelchair, the author experienced his own transformation from someone who is "normal" and "valid" to someone who is "invalid." The routine of Het Dorp became his: he lived in an architecturally modified home, visited the workshops, and shared meals, social events, conversation, and perceptions with the remarkably diverse residents. The author confronts some rarely discussed issues, the self-image of a person with a chronic disability, how one fills one's time, how one deals with authority and dependence, and love and sex.