Dangerous book

I'm very good at setting aside a book I am not interested in reading. I set aside dozens over the course of a year and you won't hear about a single one. Tonight I am breaking that track record. 

A couple of days ago I pulled a few new mysteries off the new acquisitions shelf at the library and have been working my way through them. Last night I opened The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher. It promised to be a light read with a octogenarian detective. (The Thursday Murder Club has started a thing.) This one promised something a little different in that this detective has also lost a leg. I had reservations about that needing to be mentioned on the jacket flap, but authors don't have control over that so I was willing to overlook it. I began to read. [The actual term used on the jacket flap was 'one-legged'. While this doesn't quite move the needle to a slur, it is not great. The preferred terms are 'amputee' or 'person with a limb difference'.]

I made it all the way to page 15 before closing the book in disgust and giving J. a very long monologue about why. Ready? I'll share it with you. 

First, the main character is in her mid-80's. That is really neither here nor there, but you need to keep it in mind. Due to an unfortunate accident 16 months prior to the start of the book, her left leg needed to be amputated. She now uses a wheelchair and now lives in an assisted living home. Okay, so far, so good. I can picture that. I was picturing a motorized wheelchair that she could control on her own. [My own rose colored glasses were on when I wrote about a motorized wheelchair. They are exceptionally expensive and insurance companies don't like to pay for them. Even though this is a British book, I imagine National Health feels the same way.]

Then there is a line that indicates she is not using a motorized wheelchair, but a self-propelled one. At 86. With no previous wheelchair use. Even at this point I was still willing to give the author a pass. Maybe there is a reason for this character's impressive upper body strength and I just don't know about it yet.  But in the back of my mind, I can already feel myself grumbling a bit and I was not feeling terribly optimistic. [I was correct in my assumption about upper body strength.]

The cynical side of my brain won this bet because I never made it past page 15. The character decides to go look at the place where her friend had died; a place people rarely went because it was so overgrown. Remember, this is an 86 year old woman who has been using a wheelchair for a relatively short period of time and she is self-propelling it.

"Florrie suddenly changes direction; she pulls sharply on her left wheel so she pivots, turns her back on Babbington Hall and takes a narrow path beyond the old sundial, which leads her to the farthest, wildest, most forgotten part of the garden. There's no gravel or brickwork to speak of; it's a track, that's all -- through waist-high grass that patters against the back of her hands." (p. 15)

And that's where I disgustedly closed the book. If you use a wheelchair or have a friend or family member who uses one, you're probably already reacting. But if using wheelchair is not something you're familiar with, here's the problem. Wheelchairs are not able to go cross country like this. Grass can be hard, gravel near impossible. The idea of an 86 year old woman self-propelling is ludicrous. I even looked at the acknowledgements to see if she thanked anyone in the disability community as a reader. Nope, but I wasn't expecting to find one. [I decided not to share my friend's reaction to the except. Ableist and some words I don't tend to write on my blog may have been there.]

And why am I spending the time to write this out? Because it does no favors to the people who actually use wheelchairs to navigate their daily life. This book makes it seem as though it's the easiest thing in the world to get where you want to go. Can't walk? No big deal, just get a wheelchair and everything will be fine and dandy. Except the world is very much not set-up for wheelchair users. Even if a store has handicapped spaces, they might not actually be usable. The list goes on and on... aisles without enough space between them, high top tables in restaurants, steps of any kind are just a few that leap to mind. Travelling anywhere with someone who uses a wheelchair is eye opening. And then to have an author not bother to do any research and think they can just make using a wheelchair a simple thing... Well, then you get a blog post. 

And I like to practice what I preach, so had a good friend who is far more knowledgeable about living life while using a wheelchair read this before I published it. (Thank you, A.!) I'll put what I learned as a result in brackets so you can learn, too.