The day that a book goes out into the world is a strange one. In many ways, nothing happens: the book has been printed, advance copies have been circulated, and the only thing that changes is that it is finally available for readers to buy (on audiobook and Kindle too). Big fancy launches are a thing of the past — even, I’m told, for big fancy authors. I’ll probably drink a glass or two of cheap prosecco tonight, and that’s about it.
So, it’s hard to explain why the publication today of Beautiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabioities So Wrong means so much to me.
It’s partly because it comes from personal experience. As most readers of this blog will know, my second son Joey (28) has severe learning disabilities, and being his dad has changed my life in all sorts of ways.. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have campaigned for the rights and dignities of people with learning disabilities for the last decade, and I certainly wouldn’t have got down to writing this book. Beautiful Lives starts with a ‘Letter to Joey’, and ends with a description of his golden smile. It is dedicated to Joey and ‘the Joey team’, and Joey runs right through it. As Hugh Bonneville said: ‘Thank you, Joey, for getting your dad off his arse to write this book.’
But Joey isn’t the subject of Beautiful Lives. Instead, it’s about the evolution of an idea and the history of a prejudice. It’s about how people with learning disabilities have been perceived and represented in the past, and the way that these misunderstandings and misapprehensions have led to appalling outcomes for a group who have offered the rest of us nothing but love, laughter and kindness in return. It’s a forgotten history, a painful history in many ways, but also a challenge to many of our most deeply held beliefs — above all the primacy of the intellect in our hierarchy of value.
Writing the book was challenging. I had to research up on many aspects of social history — culture, science and philosophy — about which I knew little. The experience was like opening a window onto an unknown landscape, an ‘undiscovered country’, in fact. Some of it was shocking, harrowing indeed, but so also was it clarifying, stimulating and liberating. And so today it’s a source of huge joy to be able to share these five long years of work with readers of all kinds.
But today is also a celebration of something else — the many people who helped me get the book over the line. I was overwhelmed by the support shown by so many: friends and family, scholars and historians, campaigners and philosophers, parents and siblings, as well, of course, as learning-disabled people themselves.
They come from all walks of life, with a huge range of expertise. But their generous offers of assistance, along with the collaboration and friendship I felt throughout, spoke to me of much more than mere professional interest, and I was continuously struck by the moral imperative — the laughter and the love, certainly, but also the passion and the rage — that drives so many . They all in their different ways understand what the book tries to show: that people with learning disabilities are the last forgotten minority, the ones who have been ignored, mocked and persecuted by the rest of us, and that the time has come to challenge this dark history of prejudice and say, ‘enough is enough’.
But it’s not sufficient to just write a book, you have to get it out into the world. And here I’m so grateful to my agent, Zoe Ross at United Agents, and the publisher Alex Clarke and his wonderful team at Wildfire: brilliant, kind, professional people, all working together on making this as good as can be.
And so today, as I glow with pride at seeing my book going out into the world, I raise a toast to all the people who care and will continue to care about the things that matter: love, laughter and the dream of equal rights and equal dignities for all.
Joey is toasting you too.
Beautiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong is available from June 5th from all the usual places, and on Kindle. There’s also an audiobook, read by me.
