Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life

by Harriet McBryde Johnson

Book Overview

A Washington Post Book World Rave

Harriet McBryde Johnson's witty and highly unconventional memoir opens with a lyrical meditation on death and ends with a bold and unsentimental sermon on pleasure. Born with a congenital neuromuscular disease, Johnson has never been able to walk, dress, or bathe without assistance. With assistance, she passionately celebrates her life's richness and pleasures and pursues a formidable career...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312425716
• ISBN13: 9780312425715
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A Provocatively Tilted Perspective

This new book by Harriet McBryde Johnson, a civil rights attorney in Charleston, SC and disability activist, is a must read! Her book, Too Late to Die Young, provides insight into aspects of her life and career, but the author states upfront that "This book doesn't have a tidy message." Ms. Johnson is a gifted writer with a provocatively tilted perspective that is worth hearing. She accurately describes herself as a story teller in the great tradition of southern story tellers. I knew her stories were worth reading when, early on in the book, in describing a German doctor's bedside overnight care, she wrote "Now I remember how he kept vigil at my bedside so my parents could sleep and then fell sleep himself. As I listened to his deep, barrel-chested rumble, I imagined he was snoring in German." Later in the book, Harriet, after having noted that her normal viewpoint of most people is at crotch level (due to her posture), described her first impression of someone she met: "It's love at first sight - at my first sight of his shoes." Wonderful! This easy to read book (a mere 258 pages) includes the bulk of the text of Unspeakable Conversations, a 2003 New York Times Magazine article she wrote that described her conversations with Princeton Professor Peter Singer about his beliefs that the severely disabled, in some circumstances, can justifiably be killed. Interestingly, she is conflicted about the accommodating and courteous man versus his "evil" ideas. She acknowledges that she stands outside the radical mainstream simply for having engaged Mr. Singer in a conversation. Sundry other topics this self-described "crip" covers are her personal crusade against telethons, her atheism, her battles with the Secret Service, caustically amusing anecdotes from the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago, a trip to Cuba, and battles with a New York Times photographer who wants to shoot her nude ("nekkid" in her parlance) and does -- but not for publication, and many more amusing and unsettling stories. If you want to read a sweet story about a courageous and noble fight against disability that profiles an individual who overcomes great obstacles to achieve self-fulfillment, this IT NOT the book to read. Johnson`s book isn't about her disability (adamantly so)...but the fact that she is disabled inescapably colors her stories in powerful ways. You won't necessarily fall in love with Harriet, her politics, or all of her causes, but I think you will love her passion for what she believes, what she does, who she is, and why she does what she does. Ms. McBryde is a new and profound voice (at least to me) that is worth listening to.

Voice of Disability Rights

This has been a good year for disability rights in terms of publications. First, Mary Johnson published Make Them Go Away and now we have Harriet McByde Johnson's much anticipated Too Late to Die Young. Read together these texts provide a powerful one two punch for the disability rights movement in an era which has seen the courts gut the Americans with Disability Act. Both authors have been champions and leaders of the disability rights movement and each are gifted writers. Harriet McBryde Johnson is a gifted story teller--although I wanted to savor the text and make it last I was too spoiled to do so. I read the book cover to cover the day I received it. Now, I am going back to re-read each and every chapter. Each story told resonates at some level regardless of the subject matter. What truly struck me the most was that my life is not so different, that I am not so unsual, and that the bigotry and discrimination I encounter on a daily basis is no different from what other disabled people face. I am not the only one that is subjected to unwanted attention and grossly inappropriate comments. I am not the only one that found Christopher Reeve comments about disability offensive. I am not the only one who is treated poorly when I travel on an airline. In short, discrimination against the disabled is rampant and it is heartening to know others are experiencing and fighting against this. To know that I have two gifted authors on the side of equal rights lets me not only feel better about myself a feel less alone but know the future, in spite of the courts, will be better than the past.

America Needs Crips!

In her "Unspeakable Conversations" piece, Johnson distills all the Disability Rights Movements' often academic arguments into "We enjoy pleasures...We have something the world needs." In so doing, she frees herself (and us) from the depressing statistics about bigotry/discrimination/incarceration/murder and instead makes the importance of this human rights struggle's triumph seem to have a chance of success. It's a completely different approach than Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" but with any luck could have a similar effect on society. By telling stories that have been honed through repeated smaller-audience repetitions, she gets the essentially exultant message of our shared humanity across in great style. If you wondered "why the caged bird sings" (thank you, Maya!), this collection provides lots of answers. From the heights of chutzpah of invoking (with absolutely no basis) a set of bodyguards from the Fruit of Islam through the prima donna encounter with the Times' photographer (and the tasty accreditation of her in the acknowledgements), she lays bare why we hope her rationality/humanity might even sway Prof. Singer from unfortunate sociopath to advocate. Love.

No Snivelling for Nickels

Rarely have I read a book with so many compelling reasons to be read. First, it is a wonderful read, full of fabulous prose, compelling personal stories and humor. Second, it addresses topics that currently transcend just a "disability" story. For people just recovering their sensibilities after the excesses of the Shaivo case, or others of the "better dead than disabled" school the simple "normalcy" of the author's life will entertain, shock and amaze you. This woman is, afterall, just like most everyone else. With the exception that the author does not let you forget that she is a southerner, proud of Charleston, fond of regional cuisine and appaled by such things as confederate flags and pity. But what makes Johnson's tale stand out is her personal analysis of mainstream culture's preordained attitudes on disability. Whether she is trashing the "telethon-pity-do-gooder' ethos or demonstrating the limits of freedom for a person with a disability in a for-profit economy, Johnson rejects most commonly held views and specifically the "snivelling for nickels" school of so called advocacy that forces people to become more and more dependent on the whims of public policy decisions. There is nothing tragic here. In fact, Johnson is very, very funny. Disability has been around a long time but rarely has it been portrayed with such honesty, humor and analysis. Do yourself a favor ... read this book!!

Read this book!

This collection of autobiographical stories and essays is compelling, startlingly honest, and a real page-turner. I did not want it to end, and I want to know what happens next. Harriet is unconventional, funny, charming, sharp-witted, and has a true Southerner's ability to spin a yarn. Her account of meetings and conversations with Peter Singer, Princeton professor and proponent of the idea that parents should have the right to extinguish the lives of profoundly disabled children, is fascinating, chilling, thought-provoking and haunting. Admittedly living with the kind of disability that Professor Singer believes warrants extermination at birth, Harriet punctures the underlying assumptions that inform such beliefs--that disabled people are "worse off," that their quality of life is diminished. Harriet herself explodes the stereotype, and it should be noted that she is, most emphatically, NOT one of Jerry's kids. But this is not a book merely about disability, or disability rights. It is a good yarn, told by an enchanting writer, about interesting people, and I for one hope there are more stories on the way.