Planet of the Blind
A Memoir
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4.8 • 9 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"The world is a surreal pageant," writes Stephen Kuusisto. "Ahead of me the shapes and colors suggest the sails of Tristan's ship or an elephant's ear floating in air, though in reality it is a middle-aged man in a London Fog rain coat which billows behind him in the April wind."
So begins Kuusisto's memoir, Planet of the Blind, a journey through the kaleidoscope geography of the partially-sighted, where everyday encounters become revelations, struggles, or simple triumphs. Not fully blind, not fully sighted, the author lives in what he describes as "the customs-house of the blind", a midway point between vision and blindness that makes possible his unique perception of the world. In this singular memoir, Kuusisto charts the years of a childhood spent behind bottle-lens glasses trying to pass as a normal boy, the depression that brought him from obesity to anorexia, the struggle through high school, college, first love, and sex. Ridiculed by his classmates, his parents in denial, here is the story of a man caught in a perilous world with no one to trust--until a devastating accident forces him to accept his own disability and place his confidence in the one relationship that can reconnect him to the world--the relationship with his guide dog, a golden Labrador retriever named Corky. With Corky at his side, Kuusisto is again awakened to his abilities, his voice as a writer and his own particular place in the world around him.
Written with all the emotional precision of poetry, Kuusisto's evocative memoir explores the painful irony of a visually sensitive individual--in love with reading, painting, and the everyday images of the natural world--faced with his gradual descent into blindness. Folded into his own experience is the rich folklore the phenomenon of blindness has inspired throughout history and legend.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The sightless Kuusisto escorts readers across the planet of the blind on a somber, exquisitely phrased, ultimately uplifting visit. So powerful is his narration that it will alter the reader's perceptions of blindness. Almost totally sightless since his birth in 1955 in New Hampshire, son of a mother who was so involved in the spirit world she failed to notice the severity of her son's lack of vision, and whose professor father was not educated in sensitive parenting, Kuusisto struggled to "pass" as sighted throughout childhood, college, a Fulbright study in Finland and several years of primary-school teaching. His agonies are made even more palpable by the cruelty he encountered, like one instructor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop who berated Kuusisto for his slowness. Not until his late 30s did the author realize that by pretending to be independent he inflicted a heavy responsibility on strangers. At the time he was living in a bedroom community of New York City and was in a panic over finding a job. Then he made the momentous decision to get a guide dog. As we witness his training with Corky, a yellow Labrador retriever, we feel Kuusisto's exhilaration and are assured that he is only just beginning to achieve his life's potential.
Customer Reviews
An eye-opening look into blindness
As a mother of a toddler who’s blind, the first half of the book made me feel very uncomfortable. I was afraid for my child. I wanted to quit reading the book but I felt I had to be brave enough to hear his story. I wanted to cry many times.. the book is written so beautifully. The book was therapeutic. It’s an amazingly descriptive look into one man’s journey to self acceptance. A prayer for my child.