Breath by Martha Mason

I had mixed emotions about this book.  On one hand, it's very well written and the parts about polio, the iron lung, fancy computers, and just the everyday struggle this woman faced was intriguing as morbid as that sounds.  That's why we read memoirs, to understand other people's struggles.  On the other hand, the author went on and on way too much about her childhood before polio and God this and Heaven that.  Her childhood before polio could be any child's life in the 1940s and there really wasn't anything interesting about it.  It was filled with cake contests, bicycling, and church.  And all the religious talk raised my eyebrows more than once.. The author and her parents contradict themselves.  Her brother dies from polio before Martha contracts it herself and everyone is saying he is in a better place now and la de da... but Martha chooses to live 61 years in an iron lung rather than go to that better place herself?  And her parents choose this option as well?

This is how Marth lived for 61 years:

At eleven she contracted polio and she ended up paralyzed from the neck down.  She spent the remainder of her life in an 800 pound tube of iron.  She could do nothing for herself.  Until a special page turner was created for her in 1990 (allowing her to blow into a tube and activate the turning device) someone had to stand by and turn the pages for her when she read a book.  Until a special computer was made, she had to dictate all her writing to her mother.  Her mother... a lot of the book is about her mother who took care of her for 45 years.  Her mother began going thru dementia.  This brings up another thing about this book that bothered me.  Throughout the memoir, Martha claims she took care of her mother, acts as though a huge burden was placed on her.  "..the supervision of domestic affairs and Mother's care required all the time and energy I could muster."   As cruel as this is going to sound, I don't consider dictating orders to people taking care of one's mother.  That's really all Martha could do, tell others what to do.  Thus, I found it irksome that she takes credit for taking care of her mother.  In reality, it was other caregivers, nurses, and a mentally challenged housekeeper that did all the work.

Thus, I really didn't know what to think of this.  I was apalled, disgusted, curious, bothered, irritated, amazed, and shocked all at once.  Not many people could live like this.  Her dependence on her mother was so total that when her mother began her decline into madness, Martha would lay there in a soiled bedpan.  I was amazed that this woman managed to graduate high school and become a jounalist from this 800 pound lung, but at the same time, I felt sorry for her mother even though she got her wish, "If you allow Martha to live, we will give our lives to taking care of her." 

Basically, as controversial as this may be, wheras the book most likely intended to make me feel pity and admiration, I felt mostly disgust and anger.  I won't lie.  Two stars and this was a library book.