Imprint
- Virago
- Virago
- Virago
Memoirs, Philosophy: aesthetics, Disability: social aspects, Sociology: sexual relations, Coping with disability, Pregnancy, birth & baby care, Disability sports
A groundbreaking memoir about disability from a Pulitzer-nominated writer and philosopher
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE FOR MEMOIR
'An exquisite exploration of disability, identity and the human capacity to do (and be) more than we've ever dreamed' Time
'Gorgeously, vividly alive' New York Times
'Challenges the unspoken social taboos about the disabled body, unpacking myths of beauty and our complicity in upholding those myths' Lit Hub
Born with sacral agenesis, a visible congenital disability that affects her stature and gait, Chloe Cooper Jones had always found solace in what she thought of as 'the neutral room' - a dissociative space in her mind that offered her solace and self-protection, but also kept her isolated.
When she became pregnant (disproving her doctor, who had assumed it impossible), something necessary in her started to crack, forcing her to reckon with her defensive positionality to the world and the people in it. This prompted an odyssey across time and space as Chloe - while at museums, operas, concerts and sporting events, and in the presence of awe-inspiring nature - reconsidered the consciousness-shifting power of beauty.
A book of the year for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Time, BuzzFeed, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and New York Public Library
Praise for Easy Beauty: On Seeing and Being Seen
-
Easy Beauty is bold, honest, and superbly well-written. Chloe Cooper Jones is ruthless in probing our weakest and darkest areas, and does so with grace, humor, and ultimately, with something one seldom finds: kindness and humanity. - Andre Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name
-
Graceful, soul-baring - Melanie Reid, The Times
-
Perceptive, stylish, and darkly funny, Easy Beauty is an act of grace, and a reckoning. Chloe Cooper Jones is a remarkable writer - I would follow her mind anywhere. - Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley
-
Despite doctors' dire predictions that she wouldn't live, walk or have children, she has done these things and more. Here, she probes the ways a culture determines a person's value and embarks on a journey to understand the myth of beauty and her own unintentional complicity in it. - Washington Post
-
Gorgeous, vividly alive... In rejecting the dismissive gaze of others, Jones stands in the light of her own extremely able self - New York Times
Find a book you’ll love, get our Word Up newsletter
.png?auto=compress&w=150&h=60&fit=crop&fm=jpg)
.png?auto=compress&w=150&h=60&fit=crop&fm=jpg)
Hachette Australia acknowledges and pays our respects to the past, present and future Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Our head office is located on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
