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Take It Lying Down: Finding My Feet After a Spinal Cord Injury
Six months shy of retirement and on a family vacation in Mexico, Jim Linnell steps off the porch of a rented guest house and breaks his neck. He is medevacked to his hometown hospital in Albuquerque and from there to a spinal cord injury hospital in Denver, where he learns he may live the rest of his life as a quadriplegic. How does a person absorb such news?
Jim's injury is incomplete: He has a two-year window for improvement. After three months of rehabilitation at the hospital, he and his wife, Jennifer, return to their home with an armada of equipment for his therapy, a heavy dose of anxiety about how they will manage together, and many unanswerable questions: Will Jim get better? What kind of future will they have? Can they move past denial to accept the possibility that Jim may remain a quadriplegic?
Take It Lying Down portrays a man reclaiming his life from catastrophe--it is a book of exemplary courage.
Jim's injury is incomplete: He has a two-year window for improvement. After three months of rehabilitation at the hospital, he and his wife, Jennifer, return to their home with an armada of equipment for his therapy, a heavy dose of anxiety about how they will manage together, and many unanswerable questions: Will Jim get better? What kind of future will they have? Can they move past denial to accept the possibility that Jim may remain a quadriplegic?
Take It Lying Down portrays a man reclaiming his life from catastrophe--it is a book of exemplary courage.
- GenresMemoir
200 pages, Paperback
Published August 13, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 5, 2019
I just finished reading Take it Lying Down. I experienced it as a pain- and wonder-filled memoir that moves relentlessly from the author’s sudden accidental transformation of mind and body, through his conscious step by step transformation, from the physical to the spiritual. And the whole thing sits so beautifully in time because of the stories he weaves from his past, and the presence of his wife, Jennifer throughout.
I read it in two sittings. When I stopped halfway through it two days ago, I was miserable, feeling bereft for the author and his wife, angry too. Then tonight, as the writing moved through the ‘two years of possible improvement,’ I was hooked into the possibilities in a very positive feeling way. With the final pages Linnell somehow manages to lift his personal hurt-full struggles to something bigger, something meaningful and enlightening about the human condition.
This is certainly not ‘just another one of those memoirs by someone who goes through a life-changing physical injury.’ Linnell has written something wholly original, deeply personal, and with passion and mind boggling skill! I’m sure much of it has gone over my head in a literary sense, but the emotional undercurrent was strong throughout, and carried me through to the end.
I read it in two sittings. When I stopped halfway through it two days ago, I was miserable, feeling bereft for the author and his wife, angry too. Then tonight, as the writing moved through the ‘two years of possible improvement,’ I was hooked into the possibilities in a very positive feeling way. With the final pages Linnell somehow manages to lift his personal hurt-full struggles to something bigger, something meaningful and enlightening about the human condition.
This is certainly not ‘just another one of those memoirs by someone who goes through a life-changing physical injury.’ Linnell has written something wholly original, deeply personal, and with passion and mind boggling skill! I’m sure much of it has gone over my head in a literary sense, but the emotional undercurrent was strong throughout, and carried me through to the end.
March 15, 2023
Unfortunately a friend's sister recently had a spinal cord injury quite similar to Linnell's (although jury's still out on how incomplete it is). I wanted to read a memoir of someone who had experienced it for themselves, not a medical guide. I got what I asked for, and it was a lot more literary than I expected.
Sometimes literary allusions are great because they connect you to other metaphorical planes, but sometimes they feel like a blocker to accessing the genuine emotion, and for me the literary parts of the book were a bit of the first and a lot of the second. But it wasn't all literary: there's unflinching truths about the "bowel program" for example, and sometimes he just swears, which is a totally legitimate response to his situation.
I don't think it's a spoiler, since he wrote a whole damn book, that he actually recovered pretty well, which is hopeful even through the travails. At some point his insurance stops covering the physical therapy for the rest of the year, but this is indirectly good as he starts trying a Pilates instructor and acupuncture, which seems to work well for him. Another thing that is good is his sons recreate an exercise type from the hospital at home so that he can safely exercise. Between those 3 things he gets to be pretty independent, relatively speaking.
Sometimes literary allusions are great because they connect you to other metaphorical planes, but sometimes they feel like a blocker to accessing the genuine emotion, and for me the literary parts of the book were a bit of the first and a lot of the second. But it wasn't all literary: there's unflinching truths about the "bowel program" for example, and sometimes he just swears, which is a totally legitimate response to his situation.
I don't think it's a spoiler, since he wrote a whole damn book, that he actually recovered pretty well, which is hopeful even through the travails. At some point his insurance stops covering the physical therapy for the rest of the year, but this is indirectly good as he starts trying a Pilates instructor and acupuncture, which seems to work well for him. Another thing that is good is his sons recreate an exercise type from the hospital at home so that he can safely exercise. Between those 3 things he gets to be pretty independent, relatively speaking.
November 23, 2019
First thank you to Edelweiss+ and the publisher for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I very much enjoy reading books of peoples journeys when life throws a curveball and how they handle this life changing event. Jim Linnell approaches his story in such a different way that not only do you experience the challenges and wins with him (but to be honest that is typical with the telling of these stories, in my opinion) but what is different here is that you will feel you actually know this man. I can't explain how he does it through his writing but you'll understand it when you read it.
Painfully open and honest - a book recommended to read not just for those who have experienced a life changing event like Jim's but it's a good read to understand how we should all just live life.
I very much enjoy reading books of peoples journeys when life throws a curveball and how they handle this life changing event. Jim Linnell approaches his story in such a different way that not only do you experience the challenges and wins with him (but to be honest that is typical with the telling of these stories, in my opinion) but what is different here is that you will feel you actually know this man. I can't explain how he does it through his writing but you'll understand it when you read it.
Painfully open and honest - a book recommended to read not just for those who have experienced a life changing event like Jim's but it's a good read to understand how we should all just live life.
July 9, 2020
2020 Rubery Book Award Shortlisted
The story of a drama professor who becomes paralysed after falling from a porch and breaking his neck. The memoir, pleasingly structured into Acts like a play, details the shock of the accident and its immediate aftermath, followed by his gradual rehabilitation and improvement to a state of partial paralysis. It's an impressively literate and poetic account with an intelligent philosophical dimension: he views his predicament through the lens of the literature that's been central to his career, and we see how this deepens his understanding and acceptance of this life-changing accident. It's inspirational in this sense, reminding us of the role that writing can play in our lives, both in terms of therapy and insight.
www.ruberybookaward.com
The story of a drama professor who becomes paralysed after falling from a porch and breaking his neck. The memoir, pleasingly structured into Acts like a play, details the shock of the accident and its immediate aftermath, followed by his gradual rehabilitation and improvement to a state of partial paralysis. It's an impressively literate and poetic account with an intelligent philosophical dimension: he views his predicament through the lens of the literature that's been central to his career, and we see how this deepens his understanding and acceptance of this life-changing accident. It's inspirational in this sense, reminding us of the role that writing can play in our lives, both in terms of therapy and insight.
www.ruberybookaward.com
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews