City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Golem girl, a memoir, Riva Lehrer

eng

autobiography

portraitsillustrations

no index present

non fiction

Golem girl

Riva Lehrer

a memoir

What do we sacrifice in the pursuit of normalcy? And what becomes possible when we embrace monstrosity? In 1958, Riva is one of the first children born with spina bifida to survive. Her parents and doctors are determined to "fix" her, sending the message over and over again that she is broken. That she will never have a job, a romantic relationship, or an independent life. Enduring countless medical interventions, Riva tries her best to be a good girl and a good patient in the quest to be cured. Everything changes when, as an adult, Riva is invited to join a group of artists, writers, and performers who are building Disability Culture. Their work is daring, edgy, funny, and dark; it rejects tropes that define disabled people as pathetic, frightening, or worthless. They insist that disability is an opportunity for creativity and resistance. Emboldened, Riva asks if she can paint their portraits--an intimate and collaborative process that will transform the way she sees herself, others, and the world. With each portrait, and each person's story, the myths she's been told her whole life--about her body, her sexuality, and the value of normalcy--begin to crumble. Written with the vivid, cinematic prose of a visual artist, and the love and playfulness that defines all of Riva's work, Golem Girl is an extraordinary story of survival and creativity. With the author's magnificent portraits featured throughout, this memoir invites us to stretch ourselves toward a world where bodies flow between all possible forms of what it is to be human

Prologue -- Carole's story: It's alive! -- Cauda equina -- Carole's story: Attack of the fifty-foot woman -- Carole's story: The girl with all the gifts -- Leprechaun -- We have always lived in the castle -- The island of Dr. Moreau -- Heidi -- Aerobicide -- House of wax -- Have fun storming the castle -- Gooble Gobble -- Body parts -- The cabin in the woods -- Carole's story: The winter walk -- The abominable Dr. Phibes -- Attack of the killer tomatoes -- Vampire's kiss -- The changeling -- A sweetness in the blood -- Cissy inventing the pantheon -- I was a teenage werewolf -- Curse of the spider woman -- Face/off -- The red shoes -- There will be blood -- There will be (more) blood -- Friday the 13th -- Armageddon -- The birds -- Art school confidential -- The man who fell to Earth -- What music they make -- Shrek -- Mais ne nous delivrez pas du mal -- The haunting of Hill House -- Suspiria -- Gone girl -- Graveyard shift -- The bride of Frankenstein -- The tell-tale heart -- Picnic at hanging rock -- Nerve endings -- The picture of Dorian Gray -- One of us -- Night gallery -- The woods -- I know what you did last summer -- Theater of blood -- Phantom of the opera -- Cat people -- American horror story -- The pit and the pendulum -- The fall of the House of Usher -- The invisible man -- The company of wolves -- I see dead people -- Invasion of the body snatchers -- Freaks -- The skin we live in -- Gollum -- Golem I -- Golem II -- Epilogue(s)