Table of Contents

ForewordAcknowledgmentsPart I. BeforePrologue: Overcoming Is Only the Start1. In the Beginning There Was an Idea2. Several Hours in a UtopiaPart II. During3. So Much in So Short a Time-Thursday, May 254. The Little Things that Fill a Day-Friday, May 265. The Greatest Night of the Year-Saturday, May 276. Confrontations and Conversations with Myself-Sunday, May 287. On the Problem of Sharing Power and Love-Monday, May 298. It All Depends on Whether You Stand or Sit-Tuesday, May 309. Gone but Not Forgotten-Wednesday, May 31Part III. After10. If Listening is Hard, Telling Is Worse: Thoughts on the improbable and Problematic World of the Physically Handicapped and Chronically Ill11. Four Steps on the Road to Invalidity: The Denial of Sexuality, Anger, Vulnerability, and PotentialityEpilogue: Some Concluding but Hardly Final Thoughts on Integration, Personal and Social

Promotional Information

A reissue of the classic book that gave birth to disability studies

About the Author

Irving Kenneth Zola (1935-1994) was Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University and a founding member and counselor at the Boston Self-Help Center. Nancy Mairs is the author of seven books, including Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Disabled, and most recently, A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories. She lives in Tucson with her husband, George.

Reviews

"a classic." Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal "His account is delivered with humour, honesty, respect, and humility. It offers insights into the world of disability, but really tells the reader as much about the wider society and its difficulty to adjust the word to embrace the needs of disabled people." Disability and Society "[An] important addition to the growing literature... Missing Pieces is a fascinating and readable 'socioautobiography' that I had difficulty putting down." --Paul J. Corcoran, The New England Journal of Medicine "Full of insights about the experience of disability and chronic illness, it shows us a variety of social and cultural institutions through the eyes of those whom they exclude and deny. Such studies are all too rare in the sociology of health and illness. It tells not only Zola's own story but the story of handicapped people, disabled as much by society as by any fact of body and/or mind. It is a moving, powerful, and profoundly human examination not of "them" but of us all." --Joseph W. Schneider, Contemporary Sociology "Important and moving. We see a man grow whole as he discovers and accepts his particular limits and his complex limitlessness." --Christina Robb, The Boston Globe "An absorbing book that will sensitize and enlighten...Zola has paved the way in providing us with a rich, humane, and provocative account of disability in the modern world." --Sol Levine, Qualitative Sociology "Crisp and candid... full of compassion." --David A. Buehler, Library Journal