Join us for a reading and discussion of Christina Crosby's new book, A Body, Undone: Living on After Great Pain.
Christina Crosby’s life changed forever the evening of October 1, 2003, exactly 29 days after her 50th birthday. A professor of English and avid cyclist, Crosby had set out for a seventeen mile ride, when at mile three, an undetected tree branch caught the spokes of her front wheel, instantly pitching her to the street, face first. Her chin took the full force of the blow, snapping back her neck and severing her spinal cord. In an instant, she was paralyzed.
In the months and years after her accident, Crosby was haunted by the questions: What does it take to have a livable life? And how does one live on with seemingly unassuageable grief? In A BODY, UNDONE, Crosby unsentimentally considers what her life has become, while remembering what it once was. With great honesty, she details how quadriplegia stole her ability to use the bathroom without assistance, to make love to her partner, spontaneously travel or attend a party, and even hold her dying dog. And then there is the neurological pain that ravages her body.
So how does one live on? Her memories of life before her accident serve as powerful reminders that even though her body has changed, she is still that person. Her partner, her friends and community, the college where she still teaches, literature and her writing, all provide endless support. But with life comes change, we all change, no one stays the same, and that’s what inspires Crosby to move past her grief and to live on.