Disability
A Novella
Will be published approx. on 30. June 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
100 pages
978-1-57366-222-2 (ISBN)
Description
Redefining strength, one truth at a time.
Told in a broken shorthand voice, Mazza's language is acute, evoking a place where the patients, the caregivers, and the system are all disabled. Teri and Cleo are minimum-wage nurse-aides at a state ward for severely retarded and physically handicapped children. They are expected to feed, bathe, clothe, and carry out the required therapies for their patients in a 4-hour shift. They're working within a system where money for therapy is only continued if therapy shows improvement--and yet the state-paid therapists who oversee the ward know the patients will never show any improvement. To keep the money coming in, it is up to the minimum-wage caregivers to "see" and chart important improvements, thus keeping the therapy program alive.
Blinded in their own way by their pet-like adoption of favorite patients, Teri and Cleo struggle to remain both optimistic and realistic. As their personal failures mount--and even transpose or emulate the travesties within the state ward--Teri and Cleo, with their own unseen "disabilities" in dealing with their lives and pasts, react harshly to the breakdown in the emotional balancing act.
Told in a broken shorthand voice, Mazza's language is acute, evoking a place where the patients, the caregivers, and the system are all disabled. Teri and Cleo are minimum-wage nurse-aides at a state ward for severely retarded and physically handicapped children. They are expected to feed, bathe, clothe, and carry out the required therapies for their patients in a 4-hour shift. They're working within a system where money for therapy is only continued if therapy shows improvement--and yet the state-paid therapists who oversee the ward know the patients will never show any improvement. To keep the money coming in, it is up to the minimum-wage caregivers to "see" and chart important improvements, thus keeping the therapy program alive.
Blinded in their own way by their pet-like adoption of favorite patients, Teri and Cleo struggle to remain both optimistic and realistic. As their personal failures mount--and even transpose or emulate the travesties within the state ward--Teri and Cleo, with their own unseen "disabilities" in dealing with their lives and pasts, react harshly to the breakdown in the emotional balancing act.
Reviews / Votes
"Disability is as dense, relentless, tender, savage, and strange as moment-by-moment life itself, conjured on the page whole."-Elizabeth Searle, author of Celebrities in Disgrace"[Mazza] continues to work with passion, insight and a certain cold beauty."-Publishers Weekly
"Mazza is a subversive and anarchistic writer."-Wall Street Journal
Praise for Mazza's Girl Beside Him:
"A gifted editor of innovative fiction by women, Cris Mazza is also one of its most audacious practitioners."-Jaimy Gordon, author of Bogeywoman
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Normal
United States
Publishing group
The University of Alabama Press
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57366-222-2 (9781573662222)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Cris Mazza's first novel, How to Leave a Country, won the PEN / Nelson Algren Award for book-length fiction. Some of her other notable earlier titles include Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? (FC2, 1998), Your Name Here: ___ (Coffee House Press, 1995), and Dog People (Coffee House Press, 1997). She is also co-editor of Chick-Lit: Postfeminist Fiction (FC2, 1995), and Chick-Lit 2 (No Chick Vics) (FC2, 1996). Mazza's most recent books include Indigenous / Growing Up Californian (City Lights, 2003) and Homeland (Small Press Distribution, 2004). A native of Southern California, Mazza has lived outside Chicago since 1993. She is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.