Dorothy Ellen Palmer

Falling for Myself is a memoir by Dorothy Palmer that gives a very in-depth and refreshing perspective on her life by talking about her experience with having a disability that affects her feet and her ability to walk. This memoir starts with Palmer talking about her childhood experiences growing up with a disability and then goes into her talking about her lifelong activism work from teaching to her involvement with various organizations and unions. She then goes over issues regarding CanLit, inaccessible events, and how there is a need for things to change for both of these in society. Through this book being a memoir, it likely gives Palmer the opportunity to be very candid and open about her disability which helps to give readers a real understanding of what she goes through and how it affects her experiences within her life. This memoir is a good way to learn more about disability and to have more of an understanding of how the way things are set up in society affects those who are disabled in their everyday life when trying to do basic things. This memoir also gives Palmer the ability to tell her story in a way that she wants which is very direct, frank, and sometimes in a humorous manner in order to express herself and what she has gone through. This makes this memoir something different than I ever read before because of her writing style.

In this memoir, Palmer tries to educate people she interacts with and the reading audience on how false a lot of the assumptions about disability that people hold are. Palmer talks about the common tropes that are in society today and how problematic they are throughout the memoir. She tries to educate readers on the truth about disability and how these tropes need to be understood by people in the sense that they are wrong and misinformed when people hold these views. Palmer specifically talks about the common trope that people who are disabled are nuisances on others (Palmer, 2019, p.269). Throughout Palmer’s story, she proves this is untrue by telling her story of being independent and reliant on herself throughout a lot of her life.

This memoir could be for anyone interested in Palmer’s life or who want to learn more about disability, the circumstances of ableism, and how there needs to be change regarding these things. I think it is important to know before reading this memoir that when Dorothy Palmer talks about her life with her disability that it can get relatively descriptive when she describes what has happened to her as she was growing up and what she has experienced with her disability currently over the last couple of years as her health changes. She talks about her current situation and all of the different struggles that she faces in her day to day life which at some points she describes in great detail. However, I think is this is what makes this book stand out so much and I would recommend it because of this reason. I believe this memoir by Palmer is very eye-opening in a way because as someone who is not disabled, I can recognize my privilege in never having to deal with any of the issues that she talks about. I have never had to worry or think about anything she talks about in this memoir when I go out into the public which is something that I have taken for granted throughout my life but now can understand and think more about because of this writing piece after reading it. Overall, I think this memoir is a good read and I would recommend it because I believe it is very effective in talking about ableism, the problems that come with it, and how it can be addressed and changed for the better in a way that people can get a better understanding of it and think more critically about it. It is very important for people to have some kind of knowledge on this topic in order to move forward in society and to better it currently and for the future. This is a must-read memoir if people are interested in the topic of disability, its effects on people within society, and if they want to hear more about someone's first-hand experiences of it.… (plus d'informations)