One Particular Harbor
by Janet Lee James



Reviewed by DeanOP
MSWorld Book Reviewer



Let me warn any potential reader that this book, a first-person narrative of life with MS, contains very grueling, upsettingly graphic descriptions of the author's chronic/progressive MS. I strongly advise anyone with a less galloping form of MS to use caution as regards this book. Actually, what I WANT to do is strongly advise that you not read it, but I don't like being that directive. I read the book, with growing anxiety, over a three-day period. By the time I'd finished it I was an emotional wreck and I stayed a wreck for several days as intrusive images from the book slowly began to fade in my mind. I had no idea that being a book-reviewer could be so..... DANGEROUS.

The basic story is that this young (twenty-something) woman, on the way to a power-career in broadcasting, finds that she has MS and moves to Alaska, while she still is able, because she's always wanted to live there. And over the next several years she stays fairly deeply in denial about the MS, pushes herself hard physically, and ignores any danger-signs as soon as they remit to any degree, all the while describing her symptoms to us in painfully minute detail. By the end of the book she is back in her home-town, Pittsburgh PA wheelchair-bound, able to move only the fingers of one hand, incontinent of bowel and bladder, with no sign of the process arresting. And before she ends up in a nursing home, mute, blind, unable to take care of any of her most basic needs, she writes this book so that someone, reading it, will know how she got this way. She also wrote it, she says, to launch a new career as a writer.


She says she is telling a truthful story to the best of her ability to remember. In my later considerings of her story I found some of the details a little unbelievable, though, when I first read them I was too frightened to think clearly about this. For example, she writes of an episode of bowel incontinence that takes place in a supermarket, and her description has her well-formed rectal contents ending up on the floor while people around her laugh whereupon she goes into a dissociative state out of shame and distress. Well, later I wondered how that could have happened assuming she was wearing underwear and/or trousers. Certainly one might conceivably soil one's garments, and one's odor might offend, but the story, as she writes it, seems unlikely. (Of course, maybe I'M in denial.) The book is chock full of descriptions of events such as that, complete with all the emotional horror such events might provoke in one who is not coming to terms with her reality very well (so much so that it might have been titled "The Lost Continence of Ms. James"). As another example, she tells some very funny stories of her adventures in Alaska, the kind of "tall tales" one might expect from a (cliched) grizzled old prospector or trapper. These tales were entertaining but, in them, you'd not have known she had MS if she didn't mention it from time to time. In other words, the woman in the entertaining adventures doesn't appear to be the same suffering woman as the one in the public-displays-of-incontinence stories, yet the events described take place concurrently. I was put off by all the sensationalized descriptions of the most potentially offensive symptoms and additionally found Ms. James a pretty unappealing personality because, while she expresses a fondness for all those who "did" for her and shared her adventures, she does not seem to have offered much to anyone, herself, and spends most of the book partying, dissociating, wise-cracking and suffering.


Okay, maybe I am being horribly unfair, but I compare this book with Mairs's "Waist High in the World" (reviewed earlier). Both women have chronic/progressive MS. Both women are in a similar state of (un)wellness by the ends of their respective books. They both suffer us to share their suffering. But while Mairs uses her mind and spirit to deepen her understanding of herself and humanity, Ms. James remains fairly shallow. It may be that Ms. James was simply too young when MS destroyed her life to have developed much in the way of an inner life, but I don't think that is the whole story. And while not every personal account has to be moving and uplifting, well... I can't think of any GOOD reason for a person with MS to read this book, and I can think of a couple of good reasons why a person with MS might give it a miss. And here they are... 1) there are no helpful or positive lessons to be learned from this book (exception noted below). 2) one could find oneself very depressed and left to dwell on negative outcomes after reading it.


On the other hand, here is what reading "One Particular Harbor" did for me.... some of you who visit the chat room may know that I have not been on any medication for MS, and have not wanted to be. After reading this book and getting a very, very clear picture of what late-stage MS debilitation can mean, and after recovering from my panic over that, I have begun using Baclofen for my spasticity, taking some nutritional supplements, and I am meeting with my neurologist to confer over, and then begin taking, one of the "ABC" medications. I used to say, "Oh, those drugs only reduce your progress by half. That's not so much. I probably won't get 'that' bad." And now I say, "If those drugs can help me avoid ending up in Ms. James's situation by 50%, GIVE ME THE DRUG!!!" So, you see, the book has had a positive effect, albeit backhandedly. If you are already doing all you can to take good care of yourself, you can pass on this book. If you are not..... well, maybe you OUGHT to have a look at it. Perhaps it will adjust your attitude as it did mine.


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