"Hunchback" is the story of Shaka Izawa, a woman with congenital myotubular myopathy trying to become a real woman or person despite her 'hunchback'. She is locked in her wheelchair, in need of a ventilator and she lives in a studio in a residential care home, called Ingleside, which is funded by the inheritance she had from her very wealthy and deceased parents. This is her microcosm.
To keep herself busy and to break out into the 'real' world, she writes erotic stories for young adult websites, obviously under a different name, until one of the male nurses in the hospital connects the dots.
Izawa describes in great detail the challenges of living with her disability, the risks of infection, the lungs that don't function properly, the mucus obstruct her breathing. You can only feel sympathy for her predicament and bless her that she is wealthy, because this allows her to do maybe more than more common people could have done. She studies online, like the author herself did. You cannot but admire her desire to do what normal people can, including to have sexual relationship.
The novel is tragic and fun at the same time. You can appreciate the authenticity and the candour with which Ichikawa describes her disability and her desire to be considered desirable like any other person would fee. She does not complain about her predicament. She does not make fun of her own situation. She tries to live with it, to be more than just a body in a wheelchair, to be herself, to be more than she was.
Her brutal openness alone makes this book worth reading. It's not ground-breaking stylistically but that's clearly not the purpose. It's straightforward language and narrative make it all the more accessible.
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