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Every Cripple a Superhero
An intimate, eye-opening exploration of thetrials - and joys - of life with a progressive disability
Most stories of disability follow a familiar Life Before Accident. Life After Accident. For Christoph Keller, it was his childhood diagnosis with a form of Spinal Muscular Atrophy only revealed what had been with him since birth. SMA III, the 'kindest one', allows those who have it to live a long life, and it progresses slowly. There is no cure. By the age of 25, he had to use a wheelchair some of the time. 'There were two of Walking Me. Rolling Me. ' By 32, he could still walk into a restaurant with a cane or on somebody's arm. At 45, 'Rolling Me' took over altogether.
Intimate, absurdist and winningly frank, Every Cripple a Superhero is at once a memoir of life with a progressive disorder, and a profound exploration of the challenges of loving, being loved, and living a public life - navigating restaurants, airplanes, museums and artists' retreats - in a world not designed for you. Threaded throughout are Keller's own photographs of the unexpected beauty found in puddle-filled 'curb cuts', the pavement ramps that, left to disintegrate, form part of the urban obstacle course. Those puddles become portals into a different, truer city; and, as they do, so this book - told with humor and immense grace - begins to uncover a truer one where the 'normal' is not normal, where disability is far more widespread than we might think, and where there always exist, just alongside our own, the lives of everyday superheroes.
Most stories of disability follow a familiar Life Before Accident. Life After Accident. For Christoph Keller, it was his childhood diagnosis with a form of Spinal Muscular Atrophy only revealed what had been with him since birth. SMA III, the 'kindest one', allows those who have it to live a long life, and it progresses slowly. There is no cure. By the age of 25, he had to use a wheelchair some of the time. 'There were two of Walking Me. Rolling Me. ' By 32, he could still walk into a restaurant with a cane or on somebody's arm. At 45, 'Rolling Me' took over altogether.
Intimate, absurdist and winningly frank, Every Cripple a Superhero is at once a memoir of life with a progressive disorder, and a profound exploration of the challenges of loving, being loved, and living a public life - navigating restaurants, airplanes, museums and artists' retreats - in a world not designed for you. Threaded throughout are Keller's own photographs of the unexpected beauty found in puddle-filled 'curb cuts', the pavement ramps that, left to disintegrate, form part of the urban obstacle course. Those puddles become portals into a different, truer city; and, as they do, so this book - told with humor and immense grace - begins to uncover a truer one where the 'normal' is not normal, where disability is far more widespread than we might think, and where there always exist, just alongside our own, the lives of everyday superheroes.
192 pages, Paperback
Published March 19, 2024
1 person is currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Christoph Keller
131 books1 followerChristoph Keller—novelist, playwright, memoirist—is the Executive Assistant of the June M. Jordan Literary Estate Trust. With Jan Heller Levi, he co-edited We’re On: A June Jordan Reader, and has worked with foreign publishers on translations of Jordan’s work and books into German, French, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, and Basque. Keller also edited a Bengali/English selection of poems entitled Only Our Hearts Will Argue Hard. Keller’s 2019 novel, The Ground Beneath Our Feet, won the Alemannic Literary Award; his memoir Jeder Krüppel ein Superheld (Every Cripple A Superhero) was published in Switzerland by Limmat Verlag in 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 19, 2025
2025 read: They want my happiness. Yet even though it's one of the secrets of my happiness nobody wants my disability.
2023 read: one of the best books I've ever read and I'm glad I was able to read it at this point in my life because it means so so much to me. everyone should drop everything and read this I'm so serious you all need it
2023 read: one of the best books I've ever read and I'm glad I was able to read it at this point in my life because it means so so much to me. everyone should drop everything and read this I'm so serious you all need it
February 21, 2023
Genuinely lost for words right now. Completely lived up to and surpassed my expectations. Fucking wow
September 5, 2023
‘Cripple outside, superhero inside.’
July 28, 2025
Quotes:
The true horror of being disabled is knowing that you're disabled and knowing that the world perceives you as such.
As a monster, as a dung beetle, a deformity, a disgrace, asorrow to your family, a waste of money, not a money maker any more, an obstacle in every respect. 87
AND YET, THE YOUNGEST reader may be shocked to consider that, until quite recently, most black literature remained unpublished. This neglect was hardly accidental. Literature, the crafting of language by special, human experience, acts as witness. Great literature acts as an unforgettable, completely convincing witness. Poetry raises the human voice from the flat, familiar symbols on a
paper page. Great poctry compels an answering; the raised voice creates communion. Until recently, the Afro-American witness suffered an alien censorship.
June Jordan wrote this in 1970, in her introduction to soul-script, an anthology of African American poetry. This also applies to the 'disabled' poet/writer: the witness of the disabled life also suffers an alien censorship. The only examples of disabled writers you can name, if you can name any, are the exceptions, the pardoned turkey. We're still more written about; our voices are now more often recorded; but are they heard directly?
Disability is mostly managed by the able-bodied. They are our zookeepers, we are their animals. They write books about us and the cages we live in. They write about us to advance their careers. They're our anthropologists, writing their secondary texts about us. It doesn't advance their careers when we write the primary ones. Writing about us gets them grants, prizes, tenure, book contracts, speaking engagements, invitations to conferences and book festivals, seats on boards of institutions that manage the disabled and whatnot. Depriving us of writing our texts takes away all that from us. In addition, it makes sure that the blame for being disbled sits squarely with us.
Much 'disabled' literature still remains unpublished, even unwritten as, more often than not, conditions are too hard for many of us to get through the day and get some writing done. Yet being in a wheelchair, being sedentary, is the ultimate writing position (never mind Goethe etc who wrote standing up). Well, maybe - again - the writing can be done, but what about the networking? The
selling-yourself part? The being-at-every-event-that-might-get
you-the-attention-of-the-big-shot-reviewer? We simply don't have the energy for that. There are still simply too many obstacles for that (the Swiss trains are still not reliably accessible! There's only one person with a disability in the Swiss Congress!).
Our alien censorship is also the steps / the distances / the plane rides / the hotel rooms / the inaccessible readings / book celebrations / panel discussions / writers' conferences / the zoo-keepers / etc.
99
What a thicket of barrier ropes and
posts and baby seats and tray carts and buckets and cleaning supplies I must negotiate in the wheelchair-accessible bathroom. The restaurant uses it for storage. I manage to get to the toilet, but when I'm done, swinging around, I get stuck. Something's tangled in the wheels of my chair. I sweat, I curse. I can't tell what it is that refuses to let me go. It's scary. I wiggle my chair back and forth, back and forth. I wiggle, I yell. The music in the restaurant is too loud, I realize. No one can hear me. Somehow I manage to come untangled. I roll out of the bathroom, shaking, sweating, demoralized, furious. Back at the table with my friends, I ruin the mood. 153
DO YOU KNOW that you don't have to have superpowers to be a superhero? Plenty of superheroes don't have them: Iron Man, Batman, Black Widow, Hawkeye, to just name a few. They all have powers. And they're all obsessed with technology and the gym. A
few have money. A lot of it. Which, of course, is the ultimate superpower. It's the power that buys other people's powers. Wit and kindness are powers. Patience and humour and forgiveness. All powers. Common sense, modesty, honesty, openness. And beauty. Beauty is a power, too. 154
It would be good for the reading public to get to know a character who frequently can't get into a room, or a store,
or his or her doctor's office. The adventurer's novel could help change laws, or, at least, attitudes, especially in the adventurer's native land, where they treat cows
better than cripples. 158
ALL BODIES ARE DIFFERENT; no two are the same, not even 'identical twins. Not just that: all bodies constantly those of change, constantly become different. Watch yourself: You're a living metamorphosis. You're living a metamorphosis. 163
FOR A DECADE OR so, I was two. Walking Me. Rolling Me. I still got as far as a mile or so on my feet. I bought my first wheelchair ahead of time because with one I could get so much further. I've mentioned this. I come back to it because it's hard to understand. People are used to the 'paraplegic narrative': Life Before Accident. Accident. Life After Accident. Simple as that. Of course it's not. In
our story-addicted minds, though, it's Plot Point 1 that always occurs exactly 25 per cent into your life. Before that, you live the set-up of your 'normal' life (10 per cent). That's when Opportunity strikes: cool job! sexy mate! treasure buried in a sunken ship! Then, boom!, Accident. The rest of your movie is sorting it all out. Miracle surgery (like Batgirl's) would be ideal, but more likely it's Finding Inner Peace (And Finding the Even Sexier Mate) Against All Odds. The SMA narrative is different. I was born with it. My diagnosis was no Plot Point. I both knew already that I had SMA and rejected that I had SMA. 167
Do you have any idea how many people are jealous of me? They want my car, they want my apartment, they want my art, they want my wife. They want my parking permit. They want my happiness. Yet even though it's one of the secrets of my happiness nobody wants my disability. 177
The true horror of being disabled is knowing that you're disabled and knowing that the world perceives you as such.
As a monster, as a dung beetle, a deformity, a disgrace, asorrow to your family, a waste of money, not a money maker any more, an obstacle in every respect. 87
AND YET, THE YOUNGEST reader may be shocked to consider that, until quite recently, most black literature remained unpublished. This neglect was hardly accidental. Literature, the crafting of language by special, human experience, acts as witness. Great literature acts as an unforgettable, completely convincing witness. Poetry raises the human voice from the flat, familiar symbols on a
paper page. Great poctry compels an answering; the raised voice creates communion. Until recently, the Afro-American witness suffered an alien censorship.
June Jordan wrote this in 1970, in her introduction to soul-script, an anthology of African American poetry. This also applies to the 'disabled' poet/writer: the witness of the disabled life also suffers an alien censorship. The only examples of disabled writers you can name, if you can name any, are the exceptions, the pardoned turkey. We're still more written about; our voices are now more often recorded; but are they heard directly?
Disability is mostly managed by the able-bodied. They are our zookeepers, we are their animals. They write books about us and the cages we live in. They write about us to advance their careers. They're our anthropologists, writing their secondary texts about us. It doesn't advance their careers when we write the primary ones. Writing about us gets them grants, prizes, tenure, book contracts, speaking engagements, invitations to conferences and book festivals, seats on boards of institutions that manage the disabled and whatnot. Depriving us of writing our texts takes away all that from us. In addition, it makes sure that the blame for being disbled sits squarely with us.
Much 'disabled' literature still remains unpublished, even unwritten as, more often than not, conditions are too hard for many of us to get through the day and get some writing done. Yet being in a wheelchair, being sedentary, is the ultimate writing position (never mind Goethe etc who wrote standing up). Well, maybe - again - the writing can be done, but what about the networking? The
selling-yourself part? The being-at-every-event-that-might-get
you-the-attention-of-the-big-shot-reviewer? We simply don't have the energy for that. There are still simply too many obstacles for that (the Swiss trains are still not reliably accessible! There's only one person with a disability in the Swiss Congress!).
Our alien censorship is also the steps / the distances / the plane rides / the hotel rooms / the inaccessible readings / book celebrations / panel discussions / writers' conferences / the zoo-keepers / etc.
99
What a thicket of barrier ropes and
posts and baby seats and tray carts and buckets and cleaning supplies I must negotiate in the wheelchair-accessible bathroom. The restaurant uses it for storage. I manage to get to the toilet, but when I'm done, swinging around, I get stuck. Something's tangled in the wheels of my chair. I sweat, I curse. I can't tell what it is that refuses to let me go. It's scary. I wiggle my chair back and forth, back and forth. I wiggle, I yell. The music in the restaurant is too loud, I realize. No one can hear me. Somehow I manage to come untangled. I roll out of the bathroom, shaking, sweating, demoralized, furious. Back at the table with my friends, I ruin the mood. 153
DO YOU KNOW that you don't have to have superpowers to be a superhero? Plenty of superheroes don't have them: Iron Man, Batman, Black Widow, Hawkeye, to just name a few. They all have powers. And they're all obsessed with technology and the gym. A
few have money. A lot of it. Which, of course, is the ultimate superpower. It's the power that buys other people's powers. Wit and kindness are powers. Patience and humour and forgiveness. All powers. Common sense, modesty, honesty, openness. And beauty. Beauty is a power, too. 154
It would be good for the reading public to get to know a character who frequently can't get into a room, or a store,
or his or her doctor's office. The adventurer's novel could help change laws, or, at least, attitudes, especially in the adventurer's native land, where they treat cows
better than cripples. 158
ALL BODIES ARE DIFFERENT; no two are the same, not even 'identical twins. Not just that: all bodies constantly those of change, constantly become different. Watch yourself: You're a living metamorphosis. You're living a metamorphosis. 163
FOR A DECADE OR so, I was two. Walking Me. Rolling Me. I still got as far as a mile or so on my feet. I bought my first wheelchair ahead of time because with one I could get so much further. I've mentioned this. I come back to it because it's hard to understand. People are used to the 'paraplegic narrative': Life Before Accident. Accident. Life After Accident. Simple as that. Of course it's not. In
our story-addicted minds, though, it's Plot Point 1 that always occurs exactly 25 per cent into your life. Before that, you live the set-up of your 'normal' life (10 per cent). That's when Opportunity strikes: cool job! sexy mate! treasure buried in a sunken ship! Then, boom!, Accident. The rest of your movie is sorting it all out. Miracle surgery (like Batgirl's) would be ideal, but more likely it's Finding Inner Peace (And Finding the Even Sexier Mate) Against All Odds. The SMA narrative is different. I was born with it. My diagnosis was no Plot Point. I both knew already that I had SMA and rejected that I had SMA. 167
Do you have any idea how many people are jealous of me? They want my car, they want my apartment, they want my art, they want my wife. They want my parking permit. They want my happiness. Yet even though it's one of the secrets of my happiness nobody wants my disability. 177
August 18, 2022
A witty, erudite and poignant account of living with a progressive disability. Everyday problems and everyday triumphs abound in this mix of memoir, essay, poetry and short story collection.
Everyone should read this, if only to understand and feel more empathy with wheelchair users.
Everyone should read this, if only to understand and feel more empathy with wheelchair users.
September 30, 2024
'have you noticed?
people don’t say
you’re welcome any
more. they say, No
problem
we used to be
welcome. now
we’re not A
problem'
A great book that can transform the way you interact with the world if you allow it to.
people don’t say
you’re welcome any
more. they say, No
problem
we used to be
welcome. now
we’re not A
problem'
A great book that can transform the way you interact with the world if you allow it to.
December 21, 2023
Some really thought-provoking prose interspersed with try hard metaphors and ramblings
December 13, 2025
had to skip the bug story unfortunately so missed a big section of the book, but the rest i really enjoyed. left me feeling hopeful.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews