A Nearly Normal Life: A Memoir

Mee, Charles L.

  • 3.81 out of 5 stars
    120 ratings by Goodreads
ISBN 10: 0316558362 ISBN 13: 9780316558365
Published by Back Bay Books, 2000
Used Soft cover

From More Than Words, Waltham, MA, U.S.A. Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

AbeBooks Seller since November 30, 2010

This specific item is no longer available.

About this Item

Description:

. . All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Before placing your order for please contact us for confirmation on the book's binding. Check out our other listings to add to your order for discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # WAL-J-4f-002504

  • 3.81 out of 5 stars
    120 ratings by Goodreads

Report this item

Synopsis:

As a fourteen-year-old boy from a small Midwestern town, Charles Mee believed in God, family, and his future, which, at the very least, included girls and a long spell as a hometown football hero. But when he collapsed one night at a school dance, his dreams began to vanish. In a narrative at once funny and profound, Mee brilliantly captures the era in which polio, not communism, was every American parent's nightmare. Unraveling the mysteries of his own Cold War youth, Mee gives voice both to the child with a potentially fatal disease and to the man whose recognition of himself as a disabled outsider has served to heighten his gifts as a storyteller.

About the Author: "And although I couldn't play football and basketball, I discovered that I could write about them with real sympathy and passion, and so, without ever meaning to, I became a writer.

I became a writer before I had any plan about it. It felt good, and so I kept doing it. I wrote about sports for Barrington's weekly newspaper, and I found I liked putting together a sentence that moved and worked as well as a jump shot. Here was something I could do with my head. And the page was, as they say, a level playing field. There I could be as good as anyone else, and maybe even better. After I had written about sports for a while, I tried short stories and poems.

Now and then I would tell my friends that I might become a writer. And sometimes someone would reply: 'What do you have to say?' I had nothing to say; it was just something I could do sitting down. It wasn't until years later I realized that writing is not about saying something, it is about discovering something."

Charles Mee is a playwright and the author of more than a dozen books. He lives in Brooklyn."

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Bibliographic Details

Title: A Nearly Normal Life: A Memoir
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 2000
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

There are 17 more copies of this book

View all search results for this book