I Live a Life Like Yours

'Jan Grue's superb book encompasses memoir, ideas and travel. It up-ends received wisdom about disability. It testifies to an uncrushable spirit and an ordinary, extraordinary family. It is humbling, dark, bright, defiant, smart, generous and - in its courteous Norwegian way - revolutionary' - David Mitchell, author of 'Cloud Atlas' 'A narrative that is compelling, unconventional and powerfully told... His genius becomes evident in his mastery of language' - Michael J. Fox 'Grue is not in the defensive position of justifying his existence as a disabled body but instead he is engaged in a rich investigation of the (medical, intellectual and emotional) language of his past and how it has shaped his sense of self. This is a voice that has found inventive ways to imagine and frame disability and difference' - Raymond Antrobus, author of the Rathbones Folio Prize Winner 'The Perseverance' 'This sensitive and beautiful book is full of understanding of the relationships we have with ourselves, our bodies, our loved ones and the society which surrounds us. Jan tells the story of how he came to his own understanding with exactness and poetry' - Jarred McGinnis, author of 'The Coward' 'Stunning... a restrained, dazzlingly intelligent and self-excavating examination of what it has meant to be disabled and visibly different... a meditation on what it is to be human, what it is to be lonely and full of hope and yearning... I started off by writing everything that most profoundly moved or excited me in I Live a Life Like Yours into my notebook, but quickly found I was copying out the book verbatim... It makes you read carefully and think feelingly and I'm grateful that it is now in my head and heart, working change' - Observer 'A restrained, dazzlingly intelligent and self-excavating examination of what it has meant to be disabled and visibly different' - Guardian