Insight and nuance underlie much of this investigation into the situation of disabled Americans today. Potok (Ordinary Daylight), who has the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa, shapes his informative and wittily written survey around a series of 13 interview/profiles of disability activists of various backgrounds and interests: e.g., lawyer Chai Feldblum, who pioneered AIDS and race-based civil rights legislation and now does disability law; Connie Tomaino, who works for Oliver Sacks and studies "neurological aspects of music"; Dave Loney, who makes prostheses. While careful not to present a completely cheery portrait of the world of the disabled, offering the history of eugenics in U.S. thought and law, and accounts of guide dogs who can "smell, shed, get ill, [or] revert to deeply ingrained beastly behavior," Potok discusses such positive developments as the new academic Society for Disability Studies, the ever evolving politics of the Americans with Disability Act, and the invention of the "talking computer" program JAWS (Job Accessibility with Speech). Covering medical, legal and psychological issues in depth and with intellectual vigor, the most provocative of Potok's work is his examination "about our feelings regarding wholeness, beauty, and ugliness [and] about the state called normalcy," making the book less about changing the world of the disabled than about in re-imagining the world in which we all live. (Feb. 4)
Forecast: Potok's broad-spectrum, people-based approach works terrifically to draw readers into the issues, and can be recommended especially to those who have endured any sort of recent health or life setback. Anyone interested in the intersection of law and activism will find points of interest.
