Advertisement ::

Enlarge Cartoon

In 1947 Grace Williams is born with a handicap, barely learns to speak, and is pronounced uneducable. ‘Spastic’ is the word that is used in Emma Henderson’s novel ‘Grace Williams Says it Loud’. At the age of eight she contracts polio, and, after a period in an iron lung, has one useless arm, a hump on her back and a short leg.

At eleven, Grace is admitted into a mental asylum, one of the vast complexes that existed before ‘care in the community’ replaced the cruel system.

Grace may be severely physically handicapped but her engaging voice and delightful humour reveal a very different character to the reader from the one who is pronounced ‘disgusting’ by some of the staff of the institution.

Others are more sympathetic. Miss Blackburn, a teacher on the children’s wards tells us that some of these children have exceptionally alert and active minds. Grace is one of these and, on her arrival in the institution, she is adopted by debonair Daniel who becomes the love of her life.

Daniel has no arms but his toes and his lively mind more than compensate for the deficiency. Together he and Grace live a vibrant life within and outside the institution but together they also suffer institutionalized abuse.

A little sister ‘replaces’ Grace in her family and Sarah becomes significant as the story advances. We recognize that this little Sarah is Emma Henderson, who, in this wonderfully moving account, is giving a voice to her own handicapped elder sister who spent 35 years in an institution like Briar.

‘Exuberant’, ‘Compelling’ and ‘Mesmerising’ are the critics’ views that appear on the cover of the Sceptre edition. I would add ‘moving’.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.