A Different Life: Growing Up Learning Disabled and Other Adventures - Hardcover

Bradlee, Quinn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586481894 ISBN 13: 9781586481896

Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S., 2009

Synopsis

This articulate, frank, entertaining memoir of growing up with a profound developmental and learning disability-by the son of long-time "Washington Post" Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and bestselling author Sally Quinn - will inspire everyone who has or deals with learning differences.Quinn Bradlee was diagnosed with VCFS, a syndrome that affects 1 in 2000 individuals but which stealthily masks itself with 180 symptoms that range from scoliosis to susceptibility to schizophrenia. (VCFS is the result of a submicroscopic deletion of a tiny segment of DNA on the 22nd chromosome that happens randomly in an instant during recombination in sexual cell reproduction). "A Different Life" is a revealing portrait of growing up battling the physical, mental, and social challenges presented by a sometimes debilitating and almost always demanding disorder, and a poignant confessional of the experience of growing up with such limitations as the son of incredibly accomplished and famous parents.From detailing his cringe-worthy loss of sexual innocence, to delineating the difficulties he experiences reading social cues, Quinn opens a door into his world-one in which he constantly questions what, exactly, is normal. At turns funny and saddening, Bradlee's memoir is a poignant rumination on the loneliness of being different, and at the same time, the indisputable joy he experiences in life. A balanced portrait that is optimistic without being Polly-annish, "A Different Life" deftly plumbs the depths of living in a different sort of house. Both benefiting and complicating Quinn's experience are his parents': two larger than life figures who can make things happen for their son, but whose long shadows also threaten to occlude him.

About this title

About the Author

Quinn Bradlee has made a series of short documentary films about children with learning disabilities and rare genetic syndromes, and he is also launching a website to create a community for l.d. kids and their families. He works for healthcentral.com and lives in Washington, D.C. Jeff Himmelman is a writer based in Washington, D.C. His reporting and writing with Woodward helped The Washington Post win the Pulitzer Prize for its post-9/11 coverage, and he received a front-page byline in the Post for the third instalment of Woodward's series with reporter Dan Balz about the Bush Administration's response to the attacks.

Edition details

• Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S.
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1586481894
• ISBN 13: 9781586481896
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240