Reviewed by Katarzyna Bartoszynska, Reed College.

Homebound, by Cass Irvin, is a book that unflinchingly brings the socioeconomic issues connected to disability to the fore. In telling her life story, Irvin reflects upon the obstacles in her life, and finds that most of them, rather than stemming from her disability, are in fact resulting from the way that society refuses to acknowledge and address issues relating to life with disability.

When she was nine years old, Cass Irvin got polio. The illness left her quadriplegic and using a wheelchair. Despite the difficulties, she earned a teaching certificate and a master's degree. She then became a disability activist, writing for The Disability Rag, and serving on committees to improve accessibility of public buildings and to ensure rights for people with disabilities.

More than a life story, the book is also a meditation on the experience of disability in America. Throughout the text, Irvin compares her life to that of her hero, Franklin Roosevelt. She argues that people with disabilities can lead perfectly normal lives—with assistance. But this assistance costs money. She writes of the moment when she realized that it was not that Franklin Roosevelt did not have a serious disability, but rather, that he could afford constant care. This is also where her other 'hero', Betty Friedan, serves as an important role model, for it is upon reading The Feminine Mystique that Cass began to develop a political consciousness. Friedan's book 'radicalized' her and gave her a model of activism. She became a political activist, serving in several different organizations to promote disability rights, and even co-founding her own organization, Prime Movers, Inc.

It is not the remarkable life of the author that sets this book apart—it is the unembellished way that she writes about it. The tone is candid, the description unmediated; it is as if Irvin were describing events at the moment in which they were occurring. The text is rewarding in its immediacy, the way that it allows one to relate to the author's experiences, however remote they may be from one's own. What is most refreshing in the book is the sheer normality of the story, and the tone of description : alongside stories of flirting with men, or spending time with friends, are accounts of how frightening it is to use a wheelchair on a poorly constructed ramp, all of which is described in a matter-of-fact tone that evokes an instant sense of recognition and familiarity. This is not the lofty, heroic text of a survivor, but rather the narration of a gutsy, witty woman describing her life unflinchingly.

Irvin argues that people with disabilities can lead normal lives, and proves it with the story of her own. "It is not the disability itself that handicaps us," (Irvin, 2004, 111) she writes, and provides numerous examples of people who simply cannot see past her disability, regardless of her demonstrated ability. This is the most important contribution of this text: its insistence that with help, people with disabilities can be free to choose the kind of life that they would want to live, and that they deserve this choice, regardless of their socioeconomic status.