Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out
“This stimulating anthology makes a claim for the new field of disability studies.”
Staring Back:
The Disability Experience from the Inside Out
Edited by Kenny Fries
In this groundbreaking and far-reaching collection, writers such as Andre Dubus, Stanley Elkin, and Adrienne Rich, confront what it means to be disabled in our society. Through the vehicles of nonfiction, poetry, fiction, and drama, Staring Back is the first anthology to open the landscape of the disabled experience for exploration and discussion.
“The author of Body, Remember: A Memoir and winner of the Gregory Kolovakos Award for AIDS Writing, Fries has compiled a splendid volume of nonfiction, poetry, fiction, and theater by 37 writers who live with disabilities. Their styles are as diverse as their perspectives, but the outstanding quality of the writing is consistent throughout. Several of the authors address social misconceptions of disability, and some even struggle with their own prejudices about what it means to have a disability. Yet all distance themselves from the diametrical stereotype of the inspiring cripple who deserves accolades for accomplishing anything. Instead, the writers demonstrate their humanity, or what Fries calls “the human connection—connection with the past, connection with one another, connection with our bodies, connection with ourselves.” Fries has produced a book of equal literary and social merit. Highly recommended for public libraries and contemporary literature collections.”
— Library Journal
“Staring Back is a wake-up call. This collection of writings by people with all kinds of disabilities gives voice to what was once considered taboo in polite society.”
— Kevin O’Leary, Poz