Anne Finger

I bought this book out of curiosity after reading Finger's newer book, Elegy for a Disease, about her struggles with childhood polio and abuse in a disfunctional family. Her writing was good enough that I wanted more. Past Due did not disappoint. The writing was first-rate, although the subject matter could be - and often was - absolutely heartrending. Finger's pipe dream of natural childbirth at home with a midwife attending went up in scary smoke, ending in a complicated and emergency hospital Caesarian delivery. For months Finger didn't know if her son had suffered brain damage, and lived through a nightmare of special meds and equipment and midnight ER visits. There are scenes of intervention in the neo-natal ICU which will bring tears to your eyes. Here's one, where they couldn't get an iv line into the baby's arm, so attempted to put in into his head:

"'I'm going to to put a rubber band around his head,' the doctor says. 'It'll make his veins stand out.' ... The doctor taps her finger agains his flesh until a vein appears; she shaves a patch of his scalp; the needle goes in, but not into the vein, and she probes, pulling the needle in and out, in and out, in and out, while he wails in pain. He stares into my eyes and I cry with him ... 'Oh, Max,' I say, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'..."

Anne Finger has much to say in this slight volume, and not just about the difficulties of a disabled woman giving birth, but about our society's attitudes toward the disabled, the helpless and the disenfranchised. This is important stuff, a book which should probably be read by all of those pro-choice and pro-life adherents - both camps. Too bad it's out of print and largely inaccessible now. I'm glad I took the time to read it.… (altro)

This is a fascinating read, both as a primer on the nearly forgotten scourge that polio was up until fifty years ago, and also as a look into a tumultuous and difficult life. Anne Finger wasn't just coping with being a polio victim from early childhood, she also had to deal with a violently abusive parent in her father, who may well have been an undiagnosed bipolar/schizophrenic. Finger describes in frightening detail her long-suppressed memories of being choked and beaten by her father, behavior which was ignored or rationalized by her "enabler" mother. She also notes that her own clinical depression and suicidal tendencies as a young adult may have been inevitable, given her upbringing. In spite of all this, she continued to struggle for understanding of her parents' behavior, linking it often to her "imperfection" of being a polio from early childhood. There is much critically important information on polio - its history and near-eradication - here too, making it an important document in the literature of the disease. Finger has obviously done her homework, making numerous references to other talented polio memoirists and historians such as Leonard Kriegel, Charles Mee, Tony Gould, Peg Kehret, Daniel Wilson, John Paul and Wilfred Sheed, as well as other lesser known writers. This is an important and eminently readable book.… (altro)