Yikes! What a lot of craziness I’m writing! It’s just that it’s been about three decades since I’ve been in communication with anyone who would have a CLUE about what I’m talking about.…

Back to your letter.

You have your nerve, asking about my love life, when you don’t tell me who was brave enough to merge her DNA with yours and make a baby! Well, FYI, my love life is rich and varied. I love old city streets—there’s nothing like bumping over slate sidewalks and brick streets in a rickety vintage E&J. I love soul food and my TV remote control. Stuff like that. I’m the same fussy old maid I was at age seventeen and rejoice that I’m finally aging into the part. I love “pure and chaste from afar,” just like the Sand Hills Community Youth Chorale always said we should.

And I love you, dear hideous comrade of ancient struggles. As I hope you’ve always known.

—Sara

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the twelve years, off and on, that I have worked on this book, I have benefitted greatly from the comments of people who read it at various stages of its development and generously shared their unique perspectives, all different from mine: Barry Corbet, Phil Creel, Edda Erroll, Nancy Perry Graham, Brian Griffin, Laura Hershey, Cliff Honicker, Josephine Humphreys, Cass Irvin, Mary Johnson, Norma Mangum, Barbara Mattson, Lee Robinson, Larry Ruiz, Lee Smith, Vicky Wallace-Wuesthoff, and various family members—as well as a few agents and publishers who took the time to tell me why the answer was no. I’m delighted that ultimately the answer was yes from the Frances Goldin Literary Agency and Henry Holt and Company. My profound thanks go to them all. I also thank all of those who, way back in 1970 and before, had a vision of equality for people with disabilities and launched a human rights movement—entirely unknown to the people at Camp Courage—that continues to transform their lives, and ours.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harriet McBryde Johnson went to schools for children with disabilities until age thirteen and to a cross-disability summer camp until age seventeen. She is still in contact with some of her friends from those times. Having continued her education in regular schools, she became a lawyer in 1985. Her solo practice in Charleston, South Carolina, emphasizes benefits and civil rights claims for poor and working people with disabilities. She has been active in the struggle for social justice, especially disability rights, and holds the world endurance record (fifteen years without interruption) for protesting the Jerry Lewis telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Ms. Johnson has written for the New York Times Magazine and is a frequent contributor to the disability press. She is also the author of a memoir, Too Late to Die Young.