I Live  a Life Like Yours, a memoir by Jan Grue, was published first in Norway where it won the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize; it was the first Norwegian nonfiction book to be so honored in fifty years.

Mr. Grue was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at age three.  This meant that he has lived his entire life getting around primarily by wheelchair, and every activity which requires physical dexterity (such a walking or getting dressed) requires planning and time to complete.  Despite these constraints, Mr. Grue has earned a Ph.D., is a professor at the University of Oslo, is married and is the father of a young son.

The book is written in an elliptical style, weaving together incidents from his life (not in a linear manner), selected pieces from philosophy and psychology which focus on the nature of being a fully sentient human being, and notes from the observations of the Norwegian social services people who participated in his care over the years.  Uniformly the social service personnel viewed him as not very competent intellectually, and likely to die at a young age.

Mr. Grue clearly shows us how it feels to be seen and treated as an outsider, “the other.” In this way the book was compelling; but he also shows himself to be very self-centered and not compassionate (as contrasted with appreciative, which he is) towards those closest to him.  The book evoked a wide range of reactions among the members of the book group which read it.

Janet Aserkoff