Twenty two years after Lynne Greenberg thought she had walked away unscathed from the neck fracture she sustained at age nineteen, her ordeal came roaring back when she learned that her neck was still broken. According to Greenberg, "in the breath of a moment, I could see that my life had fractured in two as clearly as had my fractured neck."
The Body Broken details Greenberg's coming to terms with a serious debilitating condition. She doesn't pull punches as to the depths of her pain. During the summer of 2006, while in London researching for a literary criticism book, Greenberg suddenly experienced an intense headache that "has never gone away since." Greenberg's memoir explores her descent into the abyss of chronic pain, drug dependence, and despair.
Along with her story Greenberg, an English professor, weaves in pertinent poetry quotes such as this one from Mark Strand's Precious Little
". . . and nothing turns out
As you thought, then what is the difference
Between blindness lost and blindness regained."
The ending is not a "feel good one" at least in the sense of being healed. Rather it is the triumph of learning to live a full life in the face of a constant challenge (chronic pain). As Greenberg poignantly explains "in November 2007, one year and five months after my life changed, I got out of bed. Such a simple act in so many ways, so ordinary, it required just a little shift of my thinking the morning it happened. I think I'll take Lil to school today and have coffee at Starbucks with my friends, I thought. In other ways, it was a momentous shift."
The Body Broken is a compelling read, especially for anyone who has ever experienced a serious illness or been a caretaker to someone with a chronic illness.
The Body Broken details Greenberg's coming to terms with a serious debilitating condition. She doesn't pull punches as to the depths of her pain. During the summer of 2006, while in London researching for a literary criticism book, Greenberg suddenly experienced an intense headache that "has never gone away since." Greenberg's memoir explores her descent into the abyss of chronic pain, drug dependence, and despair.
Along with her story Greenberg, an English professor, weaves in pertinent poetry quotes such as this one from Mark Strand's Precious Little
". . . and nothing turns out
As you thought, then what is the difference
Between blindness lost and blindness regained."
The ending is not a "feel good one" at least in the sense of being healed. Rather it is the triumph of learning to live a full life in the face of a constant challenge (chronic pain). As Greenberg poignantly explains "in November 2007, one year and five months after my life changed, I got out of bed. Such a simple act in so many ways, so ordinary, it required just a little shift of my thinking the morning it happened. I think I'll take Lil to school today and have coffee at Starbucks with my friends, I thought. In other ways, it was a momentous shift."
The Body Broken is a compelling read, especially for anyone who has ever experienced a serious illness or been a caretaker to someone with a chronic illness.
