FINALIST FOR THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE FOR MEMOIR
''An exquisite exploration of disability, identity and the human capacity to do (and be) more than we''ve ever dreamed'' Time
''Gorgeously, vividly alive'' New York Times
''Challenges the unspoken social taboos about the disabled body, unpacking myths of beauty and our complicity in upholding those myths'' Lit Hub
Born with sacral agenesis, a visible congenital disability that affects her stature and gait, Chloé Cooper Jones had always found solace in what she thought of as ''the neutral room'' - a dissociative space in her mind that offered her solace and self-protection, but also kept her isolated.
When she became pregnant (disproving her doctor, who had assumed it impossible), something necessary in her started to crack, forcing her to reckon with her defensive positionality to the world and the people in it. This prompted an odyssey across time and space as Chloé - while at museums, operas, concerts and sporting events, and in the presence of awe-inspiring nature - reconsidered the consciousness-shifting power of beauty.
A book of the year for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Time, BuzzFeed, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and New York Public Library
