In the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina Crosby was 3 miles into a 17 mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of 1000 miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her 50th birthday a month before. As she crested a hill she caught a branch in the spoke of her bicycle which instantly pitched her to the pavement, her chin took the full force of the blow and her head snapped back. In that instant, she was paralyzed.
In her new book A Body Undone, Christina Crosby puts in words a broken body that seems beyond the reach of language and understanding. She writes about a body shot through with neurological pain disoriented in time and space, incapacitated by paralysis and deadened sensation.
