{"product_id":"9780316400589","title":"A Nearly Normal Life","description":"In the summer of 1953 the author was a carefree, athletic boy of fourteen. But after he collapsed during a school dance one night, he was suddenly bedridden, drifting in\u0026amp;out of consciousness, as his body disintegrated into a shadow of its former self. He had been stricken with spinal polio. When he emerged from the grip of the disease, he was confronted with a life change so enormous that it challenged all he had believed in\u0026amp;forced him, despite his young age, to redefine himself. His once stereotypically normal life, filled with baseball\u0026amp;swimming pools\u0026amp;dreams of girls, had been irreversibly altered. He was almost the same person he had been; he was nearly normal. His moving personal narrative is a textured portrait of life in the fifties - a time when America\u0026amp;her fighting spirit collided with this disease. Both funny\u0026amp;profound, he is a gifted, unique writer, who unravels the mysteries of youth in a Cold War climate, who gives voice to the mind of a child with a potentially fatal disease,\u0026amp;whose recognition of himself as a disabled outsider heightens his brilliant talents as a storyteller.","brand":"Little, Brown and Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47163785150704,"sku":"9780316400589","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780316400589_p0.jpg?v=1769889676","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780316400589","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}