Disability: A Novella

by Cris Mazza

Told in a broken shorthand voice, Mazza's language is acute, evoking a place where the patients, the caregivers, and the system are all disabled. Teri and Cleo are minimum-wage nurse-aides at a state ward for severely retarded and physically handicapped children. They are expected to feed, bathe, clothe, and carry out the required therapies for their patients in a 4-hour shift. They're working within a system where money for therapy is only continued if therapy shows improvement--and yet the state-paid therapists who oversee the ward know the patients will never show any improvement. To keep the money coming in, it is up to the minimum-wage caregivers to "see" and chart important improvements, thus keeping the therapy program alive.

Blinded in their own way by their pet-like adoption of favorite patients, Teri and Cleo struggle to remain both optimistic and realistic. As their personal failures mount--and even transpose or emulate the travesties within the state ward--Teri and Cleo, with their own unseen "disabilities" in dealing with their lives and pasts, react harshly to the breakdown in the emotional balancing act.

100 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2005

About the author

Cris Mazza is the author of a dozen books of fiction, mostly recently Waterbaby (Soft Skull Press 2007). Her other titles include the critically acclaimed Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, and the PEN Nelson Algren Award winning How to Leave a Country. She also has a collection of personal essays, Indigenous: Growing Up Californian. Mazza has been the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and three Illinois Arts Council literary awards. A native of Southern California, Mazza grew up in San Diego County. Currently she lives 50 miles west of Chicago. She is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago "

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a difficult, but important, book to read. The situation of the hospitalized children feels accurately portrayed (from my limited experience). Though at first the writing style might seem off-putting, it is worth sticking with & reading. It isn't a pleasant experience, but I do think it's an important one.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this in one sitting on a friday night INSTEAD of catching up on the L word! i believe this statement alone heeps a whole lot of praise onto this book.
chapters alternate between the voices of two women who work at an institution for kids with extremely underdeveloped bodies/minds. the prose is heartbreaking in its coldness. not that the characters are cold, but that their observations are so matter-of-fact and hardened. cannot do justice, shutting up.

[penny shima glanz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what it seemed from the blurb on the back. Was still interesting however.