Click Here To Purchase Nub: Story of an Ex-Cripple

Author:  Emile Barrios

ISBN-10: 0974926450

ISBN-13: 978-0974926452 

Emile Barrios was born into a middle class Catholic family in southern Louisiana in the 1950’s.  He was just like any of the other kids on the block… 

Or was he? 

Little Emile had a few birth defects.  He was born with one normal foot and one half foot.  He was even more noticeably born with a nub of a hand; two fingers on either side of his hand.  Two fingers that wouldn’t connect even to form a claw.  As a child young Emile knew that he was different but this was really accented in his mind when he started to school.  He wasn’t just different in that he didn’t look the same and he couldn’t function the same with all of his appendages.  Emile also had regular visits to the “crippled children’s clinic”.  He wore uncomfortable, hot leg braces.  He couldn’t participate in sports.  And he developed an “outer Emile” and an “inner Emile”.  There was one Emile who was positive and the other Emile who grappled with the “why me’s” of his situation; the Emile who chose to hide.

Emile Barrios tells the story of how he became the man he is today.  How he learned not only to hide his feelings but to also to cope with other’s around him, from the interested and curious to the insensitive to the down right rude.  And Emile recounts how he learned to accept who he is and has been in the past in order to rid himself of the mentality that made him a cripple – how he worked to make his mind and spirit whole. 

Emile Barrios has written a well examined autobiography that will be an inspiration to anyone who recognizes and is honest about their short comings.  The book is well written and well thought through.  It makes an easy read but also leaves the reader thinking – and empathetic.  And empathy is a level beyond understanding.  Emile Barrios did a good job in getting this point across.