A Life Beyond Reason: A Disabled Boy and His Father's Enlightenment

by Chris Gabbard Narrated by Jeff Zinn

Overview

An unflinching and luminous memoir that explores a father's philosophical transformation when he must reconsider the questions what makes us human? and whose life is worth living?

Before becoming a father, Chris Gabbard was a fast-track academic finishing his doctoral dissertation at Stanford. A disciple of Enlightenment thinkers, he was a devotee of reason, believed in the reliability of science, and lived by the dictum that an unexamined life is not worth living. That is, until his son August was born.

Despite his faith that modern medicine would not fail him, August was born with a severe traumatic brain injury as a likely result of medical error and lived as a spastic quadriplegic who was cortically blind, profoundly cognitively impaired, and nonverbal. While Gabbard tried to uncover what went wrong during the birth and adjusted to his new role raising a child with multiple disabilities, he began to rethink his commitment to Enlightenment thinkers-who would have concluded that his son was doomed to a life of suffering. But August was a happy child who brought joy to just about everyone he met in his 14 years of life-and opened up Gabbard's capacity to love. Ultimately, he comes to understand that his son is undeniably a person deserving of life.

A Life Beyond Reason will challenge readers to reexamine their beliefs about who is deserving of humanity.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This is both a memoir of a child’s short life and a father’s journey from an academic who thought that love was a weakness to a thoughtful, questioning adult who values the capacity to give and receive love. Parents and caregivers will find plenty of inspiration in these moving, empathetic pages.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A timely exploration of medical error, a moving disability memoir, and an elegy for the blithe spirit of a much-loved child.”
—Sandra M. Gilbert, coauthor of The Madwoman in the Attic

“This gorgeously eloquent memoir is . . . in the top most moving, troubling, and ultimately rewarding reading experiences I’ve ever had.”
—Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen

“Gabbard writes with wit and humility about how caring for August prompted him to reexamine his deepest assumptions about the value and purpose of human life. This book should be required reading for parents, caregivers, teachers, and doctors.”
—Rachel Adams, author of Raising Henry

“A Life Beyond Reason is an extraordinary book, telling a story that needs to be told—and heard. It is a story of extreme caregiving . . . . It is also a story of enduring love, and the way that loving someone with a disability can change your world . . . . This bracingly unsentimental book is moving, illuminating, and deeply rewarding.”
—Michael Bérubé, author of Life As Jaime Knows It

“Stunning.”
—Terry Castle, author of The Literature of Lesbianism

“A must read.”
—Lennard Davis, author of Enabling Acts

“If you have ever questioned the very foundation of your beliefs—you will want to read this book.”
—Andrea Lunsford, author of The Everyday Writer

“Invites you to bask in its heartening warmth.”
—Ralph James Savarese, author of Reasonable People

“Candid and unexpected.”
—Mike Northen, editor of Wordgathering

“Gabbard’s story of his son August’s life will leave you thinking about . . . the very definition of being alive and human.”
—Mark Woods, author of Lassoing the Sun

“Loving and unsentimental . . . Chris Gabbard deftly explores the fraught, overlapping territories of caregiving, parenting, disability, and medicine.”
—George Estreich, author of The Shape of the Eye

Kirkus Reviews

2019-03-03

A professor steeped in the literature of the Enlightenment has his core beliefs about science, reason, and progress altered when he faces the reality of raising a son with severe brain damage.

In his debut memoir, Gabbard (English/Univ. of North Florida), who serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, chronicles the challenges and joys of raising his son, August, who was born with profound impairments, both cognitive and physical: a spastic quadriplegic, legally blind, incontinent, unable to speak, and unable to feed himself. The author describes his son's birth and the questions about decisions made in the delivery room. Gabbard is highly detailed in his discussions of his routine as daily caretaker and the ups and downs of August's life, which included many surgeries and long hospitalizations. While making clear the enormous demands in both time and money, he is also transparent in his rendering of his deep, abiding love for his son. Once a devotee of the concept that our intelligence is what makes us human and that the unexamined life is not worth living, the author embraced the belief that love is what makes life worth living. To curious strangers, some of whom viewed August with wariness, Gabbard's frequent reply—"This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased"—speaks volumes. The scenes with various doctors involved in August's care reveal some of the limitations of the medical profession when faced with such physical and mental impairments, but Gabbard is not writing an exposé. This is both a memoir of a child's short life and a father's journey from an academic who thought that love was a weakness to a thoughtful, questioning adult who values the capacity to give and receive love.

Parents and caregivers will find plenty of inspiration in these moving, empathetic pages.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169269765
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/28/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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