Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
New York Times Article
NEW YORK REGION / THE CITY | February 01, 2009
Reading New York: The Bagel, the Lobster and the World's 'Luckiest Man'
By SAM ROBERTS
Robert E. Paulson’s “Not in Kansas Anymore: A Memoir of the Farm, New York City and Life with A.L.S.” (Gemma B. Publishing, $19.95) is an inspirational must-read record of one man’s indomitability with the support of his wife, his family and his friends.
Mr. Paulson, a former patent attorney, began suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, when he was an adult and the father of three sons (one still a teenager). He recalls his first view of New York in “the bad old days” of the early 1960s and his later move to Yorkville, where Lou Gehrig, the ballplayer who gave his name to the disease, grew up.
Along the way, Mr. Paulson offers some intriguing arcana regarding patent law, but the most moving passages involve his discovery, beginning in 1993, that “something was wrong with my body.” He chronicles his metamorphosis from a vigorous former farm boy an amateur singer into an invalid unable to speak, one who breathes through a mechanical ventilator and is dependent on a feeding tube. “I was essentially entombed in my own body,” he writes.
But he lived and wrote this memoir on an eye-responsive computer keyboard. The “diagnosis of this disease need not be a death sentence,” he concludes, adding: “Life is everything. And what is it but the ability to feel, think and communicate? Thanks to today’s technologies, A.L.S. can’t take any of these from you.”
Echoing Gehrig, Mr. Paulson, who is 71, writes: “I am a lucky man.”
Mr. Paulson, a former patent attorney, began suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, when he was an adult and the father of three sons (one still a teenager). He recalls his first view of New York in “the bad old days” of the early 1960s and his later move to Yorkville, where Lou Gehrig, the ballplayer who gave his name to the disease, grew up.
Along the way, Mr. Paulson offers some intriguing arcana regarding patent law, but the most moving passages involve his discovery, beginning in 1993, that “something was wrong with my body.” He chronicles his metamorphosis from a vigorous former farm boy an amateur singer into an invalid unable to speak, one who breathes through a mechanical ventilator and is dependent on a feeding tube. “I was essentially entombed in my own body,” he writes.
But he lived and wrote this memoir on an eye-responsive computer keyboard. The “diagnosis of this disease need not be a death sentence,” he concludes, adding: “Life is everything. And what is it but the ability to feel, think and communicate? Thanks to today’s technologies, A.L.S. can’t take any of these from you.”
Echoing Gehrig, Mr. Paulson, who is 71, writes: “I am a lucky man.”
Thursday, December 11, 2008
STRENGTH OF SPIRIT HELPS AUTHOR LIVE FULLY WITH ALS
Not in Kansas Anymore, A Memoir, Looks Forward as Well as Back
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, delivers knock-out punches. And over the past twelve years, Robert Paulson, author of Not In Kansas Anymore: A Memoir of the Farm, New York City and Life with ALS has endured them all. A formerly active patent attorney, Paulson today can only blink and nod his head slightly. Unable to speak, dependent for life on a mechanical ventilator, tracheostomy and feeding tube, he has fought back with both dogged determination and good humor.
Not in Kansas Anymore, which Paulson wrote entirely on an eye-responsive keyboard that appears on his computer screen, is a heart-warming and uplifting story. It begins with a description of the pleasures and perils of a hardscrabble life on a small wheat and pig farm in the MidWest in the ’40s and ’50s with his widowed mother and six older siblings, all under age 18. It continues with an account of Paulson’s evolution from a young frat boy at Kansas State to a more worldly Georgetown law graduate and finally, to an experenced New York patent lawyer and father of three sons.
The 255-page book includes pictures and reminiscences of farm life near Lindsborg Kansas, a predominately Swedish community rich in cultural traditions. A fine storyteller, Paulson paints a vivid picture of life on the farm and in the frat house and elicits humor and nostalgia describing a young mid Westerner’s wide-eyed wonder as he becomes part of New York City life in the early 1960s. He also opens a window into the arcane world of patent law and reveals the astonishing explanation of why he was afflicted by this inherited disease.
Above all, however, Not in Kansas Anymore stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit, as Paulson describes turning from a vibrant, athletic individual enjoying a demanding career, fatherhood, and his lifelong hobby of singing into a totally disabled person confined to a wheelchair and voiceless. He doesn’t shirk from telling us of the indignities, embarrassments and bouts of despair he has felt, and he admits that his present life is difficult. Still, Paulson insists he is “a lucky man,” and attributes much of his courage and determination to fight for life to the lessons learned from his family’s struggles to hold onto the farm when his father died.
His takeaway message is that a diagnosis of ALS need not be a death sentence. At its essence, he reminds us, life is the ability to understand and communicate. Thanks to modern technology, Paulson says, ALS cannot take these away..
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, delivers knock-out punches. And over the past twelve years, Robert Paulson, author of Not In Kansas Anymore: A Memoir of the Farm, New York City and Life with ALS has endured them all. A formerly active patent attorney, Paulson today can only blink and nod his head slightly. Unable to speak, dependent for life on a mechanical ventilator, tracheostomy and feeding tube, he has fought back with both dogged determination and good humor.
Not in Kansas Anymore, which Paulson wrote entirely on an eye-responsive keyboard that appears on his computer screen, is a heart-warming and uplifting story. It begins with a description of the pleasures and perils of a hardscrabble life on a small wheat and pig farm in the MidWest in the ’40s and ’50s with his widowed mother and six older siblings, all under age 18. It continues with an account of Paulson’s evolution from a young frat boy at Kansas State to a more worldly Georgetown law graduate and finally, to an experenced New York patent lawyer and father of three sons.
The 255-page book includes pictures and reminiscences of farm life near Lindsborg Kansas, a predominately Swedish community rich in cultural traditions. A fine storyteller, Paulson paints a vivid picture of life on the farm and in the frat house and elicits humor and nostalgia describing a young mid Westerner’s wide-eyed wonder as he becomes part of New York City life in the early 1960s. He also opens a window into the arcane world of patent law and reveals the astonishing explanation of why he was afflicted by this inherited disease.
Above all, however, Not in Kansas Anymore stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit, as Paulson describes turning from a vibrant, athletic individual enjoying a demanding career, fatherhood, and his lifelong hobby of singing into a totally disabled person confined to a wheelchair and voiceless. He doesn’t shirk from telling us of the indignities, embarrassments and bouts of despair he has felt, and he admits that his present life is difficult. Still, Paulson insists he is “a lucky man,” and attributes much of his courage and determination to fight for life to the lessons learned from his family’s struggles to hold onto the farm when his father died.
His takeaway message is that a diagnosis of ALS need not be a death sentence. At its essence, he reminds us, life is the ability to understand and communicate. Thanks to modern technology, Paulson says, ALS cannot take these away..
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