Fairly recently, I saw a tweet about a new book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, by Steven W. Thrasher, and that it featured Alice Wong:
https://www.instagram.com/disability_visibility/
Twitter is great for parasocial relationships (though it was better before the ownership changed). Without having met someone -- sometimes not even having interacted -- you can develop respect and affection for people.
If I remember correctly, I first started following Alice because of another book she edited that featured some people I had met and admired, along with many others I did not know.
Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century
It is exactly what the title says, but that doesn't convey the variety and beauty of experiences.
There are different types of disabilities, different issues with them, and writers of different genders and races and sexual orientations. Within a relatively small amount of pages it contains much.
The Viral Underclass was from 2022. The post I saw was probably a re-post of something older, but it was new to me. I finished reading it June 21st of this year. While it is a very good book with important information. I am also fine with not finding it sooner. There are some other things that I have read since its original publication date that enhanced my understanding of it now.
Similarly, Disability Visibility came out in 2020, and I read it in 2022. However, that was fine because that meant I had already read Emily Ladau's Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally. That did not come out until 2021, but I felt like it gave me a good foundation.
I mention that because disability and accessibility are important topics, and you need to start somewhere. If you feel like you are getting a late start, don't worry about that so much; just begin!
Which is a long way of saying that when I was reading The Viral Underclass, it occurred to me that it would make sense to do an spotlight on Alice Wong. I had already read three books edited or written by her.
(Then, after Tuesday's post, I moved it up on the schedule because it felt more urgent.)
Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire
This was the most recently released and read, but works well as a follow-up to Disability Visibility.
Once more, there is some wonderful writing. I was loving the book just from the first two segments.
One of the really amazing things is how few common contributors are between the two books. The level of representation achieved requires serious effort. It helps create a vision for how we can be different and better... which brings me to the other book:
Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life
I actually read this one when it came out, in 2022.
Speaking of that vision, I remember finding that here, but being surprised by it. What seemed to start by casting aspersions on intersectionality was really about how visible disabilities can become defining and confining, automatically creating expectations. Maybe people expected to write about disabilities would rather be writing romances or mysteries or ghost stories. It wasn't the path expected, but it was effective.
Year of the Tiger had an account of the author's life, but there was also art and recipes and a crossword puzzle. The review described it as an impressionistic scrapbook, as opposed to a memoir. Yes, that makes sense. It did not have to stay within the confines of what was expected.
Alice Wong does good things, with creativity, humor, and connection, while continuing to attempt to help others.
https://linktr.ee/disability_visibility
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