āHannah Soyerās Dreams in Which Iām Almost Human asks readers to radically reconsider what constitutes a body.ā
At eight years old, Hannah Soyer had no choice but to undergo an intensive spinal fusion surgery, in order to keep her lungs from eventually collapsing. Fourteen years later, she chose another treatment for her neuromuscular condition: regular drug injections into her spinal fluid. But what does āchoiceā really mean, and how much weight do our choices hold?
In taut, lyrical chapters, Dreams in Which Iām Almost Human confronts and communes with bodily autonomy, medical and sexual consent, traveling abroad in a wheelchair, caregiving and caretaking, appreciating the natural world, family history, bedtime stories, fantastical creatures, Irish poetry, and the limits and wonders of language and love. A bold collection of genre-bending essays, this memoir is an investigation into what we (and our words) are capable of, as we yearn to make sense of our relationships to ourselves, each other, and the worlds we inhabit.
Hannah Soyer is a queer disabled writer living in the Midwest. She has written for nationally acclaimed publications such as The Sun Magazine, Bustle, and Cosmopolitan and is the editor of The Ending Hasnāt Happened Yet: An Anthology of Disability Poetics from Sable Books (2022). Her chapbook, For When the Shapes Keep Changing, won the 2021 Nonfiction OutWrite Chapbook Competition. Hannah also happens to be a cat and chocolate enthusiast.
āDreams in Which Iām Almost Human generously and whimsically offers a timely examination of lifeārich, complicated lifeāin a vulnerable body. With lyrical finesse, Hannah Soyer weaves together the personal and the political, dreams and nightmares, flesh and machine, the mermaid tail and the surgical scalpel, to tell a story that wonders and wanders. Instead of offering cheap, tidy resolutions, she invites readers to sit boldly, audaciously in the ambiguity of life tethered to a body.ā
ā Rebekah Taussig, author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
āHannah Soyerās Dreams in Which Iām Almost Human asks readers to radically reconsider what constitutes a body. Exploring themes of ability, capacity, and dependency, Soyer pushes readers to question the boundary between self, other, and world. Soyer does this work lyrically, poetically, and mythically, merging coming-of-age, fairy tale, and quotidian daily life into an expansive, unique, and uncanny new world. Soyerās beautiful debut is essential reading for anyone trying to understand how, why, and through what means we construct our selves.ā
ā Cyrus Dunham, author of A Year Without a Name
Check out an excerpt from the book:
Displacement
I am separated from my mechanical body again when we visit the Mini Cliffs, an outcrop of moonlike stones a short drive from their namesake, the Cliffs of Moher. I decide to get into the manual wheelchair-like stroller that we brought along, so that I can get closer to the ocean. Fi, a fellow student in the program who I would later connect with over chronic illness, came to sit on the ground beside me, and made a comment about the tiny purple flowers growing between the cracks in the rocks. The flowers make me think of the carved angel face hidden behind a pillar in a church we toured earlier that weekendāin a rage against iconography, Protestants had smashed all other stone angel faces in St. Nicholasās Church, missing this one because of its hiding spot. It wasnāt supposed to be there, but it survived.
Now, my body is held by the purple cloth of the stroller, and I am looking down at tiny purple petals. For the first time since I can remember, my feet are touching the ground. Immediately after this trip, I will say the effect of seeing my feet touching the ground is reassuring. Iām not sure if reassuring is the correct wordāsteadying,perhaps. Or triumphant,although not triumphant in that I was no longer in my wheelchair, triumphant in a way that existed quietly inside meāāI had managed to honor a younger selfās desire to have my body flush with Irelandās terrain. I take one of my favorite photos of the entire trip right then, my black combat boots framed against the stone, the darkened craters in the rock ringed in green.
Years later, Iāll be in a creative nonfiction workshop with a theme of āBoots on the Groundāāthat is, writing through wandering, that is, writing through walking, that is, the old and apparent greats who wrote meandering essays about, yes, meandering on their two legs, and so, perhaps in a moment of subconscious defiance, I included, in an essay I turned in for workshop, a description of the photo I took in Ireland of my black combat boots against the moon-stone and green grass. āI just have to say it,ā another student in the workshop said when I turned in that specific essay, āIf the theme of this class is āBoots on the Ground,āshe did it. She actually gave us boots on the ground.ā And indeed I had, I realized. Boots on the fucking ground.
Ok, I am officially intrigued! Congrats for bringing this book into the world!!