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Title: Schmitty Love
Author: Billy Williams
Narrator: Gregg Cagno
Format: Unabridged
Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-14-12
Publisher: Billy Williams Editing
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
A young boy is crippled at 15. He live's in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and he's very happy for the next 60 years. What's his secret? How is that possible? The answer lies in the title Schmitty Love - that's the special part of the story.
Schmitty never gets old in his heart. Unable to communicate through words, Schmitty forges connections with those around him through his winning laugh and his powerful heart. A mixture of tragedy and comedy, Schmitty's story is told from his perspective, revealing his thoughts about the sometimes funny, sometimes dark world around him.
If you're a person who feels, who laughs, a person who cries, and who understands obstacles and their realities, then this book is a unique window into someone else's heart, says Williams.
Members Reviews:
Unrealistic and ignorant take on physical disability
This is a superficial and stereotyped look at severe physical disability. The protagonist cannot speak well enough for others to understand him and he uses a wheelchair. He lives in an inaccessible bar all of his life. His time in a wheelchair (since he was 15) is presented as a time during which he did not mature emotionally. He is stuck at 15 (as if severe physical disability stunted personal growth; quite the opposite, in my experience!), unable to understand what others know as love. His love is different...
Why??? Because the author has never experienced this kind of disability, and despite a few paragraphs that acknowledge the nondisabled's failure to humanize the protagonist, the author falls into the same trap. There are glimpses of recognition of self, but the heart is child-like, stupid, even. It is silly to imagine that wheelchair use would make a person not understand or desire sex, but this is how Schmitty is portrayed. Beyond this, so much is missing/forgotten: how does the protagonist get dressed or go to the bathroom? Who helps him? How does he shower? How does avoid pressure sores from sitting all day, year after year? These are not small parts of life for someone with this kind of disability, but they are completely left out.
I am sorry to say that this text--despite, I'm sure, all noble intentions--is damaging and insulting to any reader who may relate to the protagonist and not view him as some touching "Other."
~*~ Lovely ~*~
I was first acquainted with the Williams' sense of narrative through the work of Billy Williams's sons.. The senior Williams far surpasses the wit and storytelling of his offspring, but it is apparent nonetheless that the sense of working class identity is close to the Williams' heart. Schmitty Love transcends the rhetoric of modern narratives and captures the local language and vitality of Queens, New York in a time that has passed. Superb work!!
Brought a tear to my eye...
Mr. Williams got it right. I was born and bred in Brooklyn and even though it is a fictional bar, I know these characters and I know this bar. The most heart-warming book I've read this year. I hope there is more to come. Schmitty himself would get out of his wheelchair and cheer. This could be the next great Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.
Touching
Truth, Feeling, Passion, "Schmtty Love" is a right of passage for the reader as well as a touching love story which cannot BE... except in the mind of a simple and tenacious individual such as SCHMITTY...
