Limbo: A Memoir

FROM OUR EDITORS

A. Manette Ansay's childhood dreams of being a concert pianist were thwarted when she came down with a mysterious muscle disorder. By the age of 21, she couldn't grip a pen or walk across a room. But she could still write, and she has written a moving and heartfelt account of her life before, during, and after her medical struggles.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From childhood, A. Manette Ansay trained to become a concert pianist. But at 19, a mysterious muscle disorder forced her to give up the piano, and by 21, she couldn't grip a pen or walk across a room. She entered a world of limbo, one in which no one could explain what was happening to her, or predict what the future would hold. At 23, beginning a while new life in a motorized wheelchair, Ansay made a New Year's resolution to start writing fiction, and in doing so, grandually "made sense of a world that didn't," rediscovering the sense of passion and purpose she'd thought had been lost with her music.

Thirteen years and five books later, still without a concrete diagnosis or prognosis, Ansay reflects on the ways in which the unraveling of one life can plant the seeds of another, and considers how living with uncertainty has challenged—in ways not necessarily bad—her most fundamental assumptions about life and faith. Luminously written, Limbo is a brilliant, moving testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this gorgeous memoir, Ansay (Vinegar Hill; Midnight Champagne) recounts how, at the age of 19, an undiagnosed muscle disorder cut short her promising career as a concert pianist. Describing memory as "the switch on the wall. The pull chain on the lamp," Ansay beautifully illuminates selected details of her Catholic childhood, her struggles with religious faith and her growing realization that her illness is a permanent one. In her rural community, where "illness and shame still go hand-in-hand," Ansay's family is unsympathetic to undefined injuries. Head colds call for "hot whiskey punch with lemon and sugar," and toothaches are cured by chewing on the other side of one's mouth. In deference to her musical ambitions and religious upbringing, Ansay tries to transcend her pain, suffering through piano lessons, recitals and conservatory training. But she never lets this memoir devolve into one of those stories about "crippled children with heroic personalities." In fact, she pokes fun at such narratives: "Thanks to the power of faith... the family rallies around the child, discovering in the process that instead of a tragedy, this child is the greatest blessing of their lives." Instead, Ansay reveals the painful indignity of having a debilitating physical condition that is immediately visible: "It's right there, out in the open, where anyone might choose to poke at it, probe it, satisfy their grim curiosity." (Oct. 16) Forecast: Ansay's novel Vinegar Hill was an Oprah-anointed bestseller; that and a generous marketing campaign including advertising in the New York Times Book Review, as well as a 15-city NPR campaign will give this memoir well-deserved prominence. Copyright 2001 CahnersBusiness Information.

Library Journal

When Ansay, a 19-year-old piano student, experienced extreme pain and weakness in her arms and legs, she reacted by covering it up and practicing more. Illness, she had been taught, only happened to those who didn't try or pray hard enough. But trying and praying didn't help, and neither could the doctors. Finally diagnosed with a mysterious multiple sclerosis-like disorder, Ansay had to abandon her dream of being a concert pianist. In an attempt to make sense of her life, she began writing fiction. This memoir follows a collection of short stories and four novels, including Midnight Champagne, a finalist for the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award. Ansay writes with the conviction and authenticity of one who has had to give up on her dream and find a new sense of purpose. Despite weakening eyesight and limited activities, she embraces her life of writing and teaching with enthusiasm. Readers will enjoy the account of the carefree summers on her grandparents' farm, and some will empathize with her struggles to reconcile her illness and her belief in God. Recommended for all large public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/00.] Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Ansay was on her way to the prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music and a promising career as a concert pianist when she developed a progressively debilitating condition that left her unable to use her arms or hands without braces and only with considerable pain. This memoir is an account of the outward manifestations of her illness-the progression from trying to control her unyielding foot, to soaking her aching and unmanageable limbs after each grueling attempt to play the piano, to being forced to give it up altogether. More significantly, though, this is an account of Ansay's thoughts and reactions to her condition. She ponders her disability in the light of her rigid Catholic upbringing in a small Wisconsin farming town, and loss of faith while in college. She moves from a conviction that this pain and suffering is somehow her fault through a total loss of spirituality to the ultimate knowledge that her present life is moving in a most rewarding path, somehow made possible by her illness. She marries an understanding but not pitying young man, and she achieves a fuller comprehension of her place in this world and the joy it can bring her. Teens will follow her from her secure and sheltered childhood, where she is full of mischief and the "second-fastest kid at Lincoln Elementary," through her years of diagnosis and treatment to the adult she has become. She is now waiting for the next stage of her life to begin and sure she will make the most of whatever comes along.-Susan H. Woodcock, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews