"Remembering the Bone House" (1989)
"Carnal Acts: Essays"(1990)

"Waist-High in the World, a Life Among the Non-Disabled"(1996)

by Nancy Mairs

(Click on book cover to go to Amazon link)

Reviewed by DeanOP
MSWorld Book Reviewer

I don't know how to review these works so as to pay homage to this very shy and fearful woman who has chosen to reveal herself to readers over the years in all her fearfulness, with all her imperfections, and who has allowed her readers to participate vicariously in her growing and deepening understanding of herself. I'd like to write, simply, that all of you, even without MS, but particularly with, owe yourselves the experience of reading any of Mairs's work, especially "Waist-High in the World".

"Remembering the Bone House" is, superficially, an autobiography but it is more than that, really, and "Carnal Acts" is a collection of essays many of which have to do with Mairs having MS. But you probably want to know WHY I think you ought to read Mairs. You may want more incentive than I have given you so far. You may want to know what makes Mairs's work different from that of other autobiographical works by people with MS. And it will be hard for me to describe the difference, but, here goes...

Many of the books I've read by people with MS are about dealing with MS. And when you read them, although the writer talks of his/her own MS and the pain and triumph that he/she experiences, you never quite feel the indivisible nature of "person+MS". The pharmaceutical companies and MS organizations reflect this separation of "person" from "MS" in the statement "I may have MS, but that doesn't mean MS has me". We have been told, by alternative medical practice in the past several years, that one aspect of healing involves doing away with the duality of the mind/body split... becoming whole. Yet we continue, in that slogan, to reject the truth of our own bodies' experience.When Mairs writes about MS she writes from within an identity that incorporates MS, makes it one with her "self". MS and Nancy Mairs have each other, ARE each other. Mairs embodies MS. This gives her writing a very earthy closeness. Mairs's MS is there for the reader even when she ISN'T writing about it.

So much of the time we are kept on "red-alert" with regard to our bodies, watching out for this, avoiding that (WATCH OUT!!! WATCH OUT FOR STRESS!!! HEY! DON'T GET STRESSED!!! CAREFUL NOW!!!). Our friends, peers, organizations importune us to "fight" MS as opposed to "giving in"... again presenting us with an either-or situation. But Mairs takes a different road. She accepts MS, neither fighting nor giving in. She has learned much about herself as she has struggled to escape the clutches of dualism and focus on acceptance. And she has written these books and essays in order to share not only what she has learned but how she has learned. I have to say that when I read "Waist-High in the World" in 1996 it changed my life. I, too, had been caught in dualistic thinking, fighting or giving in. I was in denial or else in a panic over the diagnosis and symptoms. And here was a disabled woman, a sexy, intelligent, feisty disabled woman... the kind I never saw in TV ads or upscale clothing catalogues, writing sexily, intelligently and feistily about a way of making a life that didn't involve fighting or giving in...

"Tai Chi for the soul of the MSer"... "the Tao of MS". Look, having MS isn't fun. I know that and you know that. And Mairs's writing isn't fun either, though some of her observations made me laugh aloud. It's strong, beautiful, painful writing. It's sometimes embarrassingly honest writing.

Mairs complains a lot. In her early work she seemed a very bitter person and that, mostly, toward herself. But it reads to me as though MS has been a tremendous opportunity for Mairs, as though the MS "morphed" her bitterness and then challenged her to accept herself. This she has done admirably and insofar as she has not, she is able to say so. She seems to have found some measure of contentment despite her poignantly written fears about the future. The thing is, she can be, can accept being, both contented and scared to death. She has a progressive form of MS. She was in her thirties when first diagnosed. By the time she was in her late forties she was using a scooter almost all the time. By the time "Waist-High" was written, Mairs, in her fifties, was restricted to using one arm, and her husband had had several operations for melanoma. From the time she was diagnosed she and her husband have lived in Tucson, AZ where they raised their family, and I am assuming she still lives there but I haven't been able to track down any current information as to her status (probably because I don't know where to look).

These are really philosophical and anecdotal works. They aren't filled with suggestions or advice. I found them very inspiring, but they probably were not written to inspire. They read as though they were written because Nancy Mairs had to write them. And I am glad I read them. I hope you will be, too.