Eileen has ten siblings to contend with as she evolves from child to adult.

She has a much tougher time navigating the shifting emotional currents set off by members of her rambunctious family. In fact, it seems that the most complex feature of Cronin’s life is not her lack of legs. But once she’s old enough to get prosthetic legs, her challenges start to resemble those of typical teenagers. She must “squiddle” from one place to another instead of walk. Sure the young Eileen is at a great disadvantage in her early years. But that’s not how Cronin’s memoir, Mermaid, comes across. You might think that if you’ve spent your earthly time in prime physical condition, her story will not connect with yours.

Eileen Cronin, for example, was born without legs. But some people get a truly strange variable thrown into their stew. Lives get twisted and re-shaped by crazy family members, creative impulses, and random events. It’s amusing-and sometimes shocking-to discover the great variety of messes humans can create with similar ingredients. (Jan.When I read a memoir, I feel like I’m climbing into the kitchen of someone I’ve never met to see if their recipes for life trump mine. Her mother, teetering into mental illness after her 11th child, always insisted that Cronin did not have legs “because baby Jesus chose to carry the cross.” Cronin describes the tortures of dating and young adulthood, but evades the big questions regarding her upbringing. Fitted with artificial limbs to attend kindergarten, Cronin mostly succeeded in being accepted as a “normal” kid, except for the gracelessness of others, such as her fifth-grade religion instructor, Sister Luke, who announced to the class that the reason for Cronin’s disability was that her mother had taken “a pill” during pregnancy, though Cronin was never able to determine if thalidomide was involved. The product of a large, deeply Catholic Cincinnati family, Cronin “squiddled” along the floor with ample self-sufficiency as a child until she began to recognize how she was different from other people, especially the members of her own athletic, sometimes cruel, family. This rather circuitous memoir by Cronin, now a clinical psychologist in L.A., tells of growing up with a congenital disability that left her without legs from the knee down.

Mermaid a memoir of resilience