A memoir about the last great polio epidemic, by an author who was one its victims.
It is very easy to get polio. Patrick Cockburn was six when he woke up one day in the summer of 1956 with a headache and a sore throat. His parents, Claud and Patricia Cockburn, had recently returned to Ireland, to their house in East Cork, careless of the fact that a polio epidemic had broken out in Cork City. He caught the disease and was taken to the fever hospital. The virus attacks the nerves of the brain and the spinal cord leading to paralysis of the muscles. Patrick could no longer walk.
The Broken Boy is at once a memoir of Patrick Cockburn’s own experience of polio, a portrait of his parents, both prominent radicals, and the story of the Cork epidemic, the last great polio epidemic in the world.
Author Biography
Patrick Cockburn writes on foreign affairs for the
Independent. His previous books are
Getting Russia Wrong and
Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.
Reviews
Charming, interesting and moving by turn,Engrossing... an often perceptive genre-defying gem...engaging and entertaining,‘This is wonderful writing…Brilliant…Cockburn has pulled off something remarkable’,'This is a story of endurance and a hugely adventurous mind, elegantly told.' - Robert Fox,
Evening Standard,‘Sad and entertaining, and altogether evocative of a vanished Ireland’,'This is a gentle, uncomplaining story written with affection and insight.',‘Engaging and witty…Oddly uplifting’
