Sal And Michael's Life Tale

Sal And Michael's Life Tale

Bruce Von Stiers

My wife serves on the board of a local nonprofit organization that supports individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She volunteers for events that involve that organization and others, such as Special Olympics. And I too volunteer for some of those events. I have seen people struggle to communicate and I have seen exhilaration in the face of a Special Olympian who has just won a 100-meter race.

It is with that limited knowledge that I dove into Range of Motion. This is the debut novel by Brian Trapp. He is the director of disability studies at the University of Oregon. Brian also teaches fiction and nonfiction writing at the university.

Range of Motion is about two brothers. They are twins, Michael and Sal. Michael is the typical boy. But his brother Sal has Cerebral Palsy. Michael tries to look after Sal as best he can. But sometimes there is resentment, self-pity, self-loathing and other baggage that comes along with just being Sal's brother and sometime caretaker.

The book opens in August of 2002. Sal and Michael are both eighteen. Sal is at a summer camp for disabled people and Michael is there as his aide. In fact, Michael is given the nickname, The Aide, by somebody at the camp.

You can tell some resentment is going on. And that Sal might not really want to be at the camp. But then there is an incident and Sal disappears.

From there the book takes the reader back through the life and times of Sal and Michael. Sometimes the perspective is from Michael, other times it is either his mom, Hannah, or his dad, Gabe. There are segments when the boys are toddlers and in elementary school. Special considerations are made for Sal and there are many struggles that the family must go through for him.

Michael feels he has this telepathic link to Sal, where he can hear what Sal is actually saying, or trying to convey. This gets him in trouble with their parents, and other people, every once in a while.

Hannah struggles to be Sal's caregiver and his mom too. No home health aide seems to be right to help with Sal and Michael is often indifferent to the angst his mom goes through. But that later changes as Michael and Sal grow older. Gabe is really no help, as he buries himself in his work as a scientist and family breadwinner.

The reader meets Michael's friends Gregg and Shawn, who are your average goofy teens. Then there is Bobbie, a girl who Michael really likes, but who is only interested in being a friend to Sal. Those three weave their way throughout the book in various ways.

The various narratives in the book cumulate into the spot where Michael finds that Sal has disappeared from the camp. What led to the disappearance and the aftermath ties everything together very well.

Brian seems to have written this novel from his heart. His brother Dan had cerebral palsy. So, Brian was able to draw from his own experiences, and those of others, to paint a vivid picture of the struggles that families go through with a child who has cerebral palsy.

Range of Motion is at times funny, tender at times, and almost tear effecting in a few places. It is a novel that takes the disability of cerebral palsy and shows a different side than most people might think of it. A statement from the back of the book cover states that it transforms “perceptions of disability and interdependence through tender detail...” I couldn't have said it better myself.

Range of Motion was published by Acre Books. It is being distributed through the University of Chicago Press. You can also purchase the book through outlets such as Barnes and Noble.

You can learn more about Range of Motion and the latest on Brian Trapp on his Threads page at https://www.threads.com/@btrapperkeeper39

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