Beryl Potter was a reserved working-class mother of three living a decent life, or so it seemed, when a harmless slip and fall marked the unravelling of everything that she had known about herself and the world around her. Over the course of six years, she endured unimaginable pain. As doctors raced to save her life, her limbs and eyesight were taken from her one by one. In the span of a few years, she lost nearly half her body, her financial security, her home, her husband, and any semblance of a recognizable future.
A survivor of more than one hundred surgeries, a dangerous opioid addiction, and multiple suicide attempts, Beryl Potter devoted herself to bettering the lives of other people with disabilities and made a tremendous contribution to disability awareness from the 1970s to 1990s. In this unparalleled biography, Dustin Galer demonstrates how Beryl Potter seemed to crack the code of the social system that oppressed her. By wading into the weeds of her complicated life before and after her accident, Galer leaves readers with a complex portrait of a woman who defied and challenged gender and disability norms of her time, paving the way for disability justice. The story of a mid-century working-class housewife whose extraordinary physical transformation empowered her to become a dynamic social activist who fueled a movement to create a more inclusive future for people with disabilities.
"Long before the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Beryl Potter did some of the most important pioneering disability rights activism. In this comprehensive and thoughtful biography, Dustin Galer resurrects a lost story of dignity, advocacy, and triumph. An important contribution to both disability studies and history, Galer painstakingly crafts a book that is both scholarly and personal."
"Dustin Galer's storytelling is vivid and picturesque. His careful research and attention to detail transports the reader from the rooms of a 1920s Liverpool tenement to those in a Toronto lowrise during the 1980s. This book immerses the reader in Beryl Potter's life and extraordinary story of personal transformation, ignited (for better or worse) by the effects of her limb amputations and vision loss. For anyone interested in the social history of the disability movement in Canada, this important memoir is required reading."
"In his captivating book Dustin Galer delves into the inspiring journey of Beryl Potter, a prominent Canadian disability rights advocate. Galer crafts a deeply moving account that lays bare Beryl's remarkable life, showcasing her resilience and unwavering determination to pave the way for a more inclusive and just world. This biography stands as a powerful testament to Beryl's transformation into a formidable activist, profoundly reshaping the landscape of disability justice."
"Beryl Potter is an activist in the truest sense. Her rich, complicated life provides important insights into the strength and fortitude required to obtain the most basic disability rights."
"Dustin Galer's organization of a vast array of rich material and his first-rate analysis conveys the life and times of controversial disability activist Beryl Potter with a familiarity and, at times, intimacy that will appeal to a wide audience. It's an easy read in the best sense-accessible, highly informative, and enticing to find out what happened next."
"At a time when the predominant image of people with disabilities was just starting to shift out of asylums, hospitals, and the dark places where they had been relegated for so long, Beryl Potter laid the foundation for the inclusion movement in Canada. Beryl is a story of a life in which dreams were shattered by a disabling accident but that was re-built through the experience of being seen and accepted. Beryl chose dignity over pity and agency over being tended to. There are lessons here for us all, from school kids to politicians, about wha
