Spoken: A Memoir Sprinkled With a Little Quadriplegia Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses sex and suicide.

I’ve read plenty of memoirs written by extraordinary people. I always admire how they came out on top despite the struggles they went through. Today, I will add another title to that group Spoken: A Memoir Sprinkled With a Little Quadriplegia by Robert A. Rieck Jr – a story about one man’s life before and after becoming quadriplegic. It’s a unique story that I couldn’t believe happened with an interesting structure, and I loved how the author was unafraid to show his dark side and sexuality while balancing them out with his humor.

Spoken: A Memoir Sprinkled With a Little Quadriplegia recounts the good and bad choices that led to painful challenges and remarkable accomplishments in the life of Robert A. Rieck Jr. Growing in a Jehovah Witness family in Nebraska, Robert always wanted to try new experiences. When he got older, he discovered love and had many relationships with various women at different times. From an early marriage to a suicide attempt, his love life took him through significant life changes, including becoming a C5 quadriplegic and struggling with depression. Despite his difficulties, he found purpose while being a drug and alcohol counselor, participating in competitions for wheelchair athletes, working on his unique T-shirt designs as a mouth artist, and becoming a full-time animal and vegan rights activist. 

As alluded to earlier, there’s not a memoir I’ve read that had a life like Robert’s. He wanted to gain new experiences because he grew up in a Jehovah Witness family, which restricted him in certain ways. Because he was in that kind of household, he could have been viewed as naive in certain eyes, like marrying his best friend’s mom when he was 17. More importantly, I didn’t really know much about quadriplegia prior to reading Spoken. Nonetheless, I learned quite a lot about it, for Rieck is able to express what he goes through in basic terms, especially how he manages to stimulate sex. He even invented a chair that would allow him and his able-bodied partner to have oral sex, but sadly, he never was able to get the patent.

Not only did I enjoy Robert’s story, but also I loved how he told it. How Rieck structures the memoir appears to be of the from-cradle-to-present-day kind. But, towards the end, he reveals that he used the Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development framework to evaluate his life. This theory asserts that personality “develops in a predetermined order through eight stages of psychosocial development, from infancy to adulthood. During each stage, the person experiences a psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for personality development.”

I have come across this theory prior while reading A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led: A Personal Memoir in Eight Psychosocial Development Stages by Robert C. Jones. Rieck better utilizes this framework than Jones did because the former was able to blend the theory into his story. Again, I didn’t realize that until Rieck mentioned it at the very end.

Additionally, I loved how Robert was brave to show his darkness, sexuality, and humor. He is open about his depression, especially in how he didn’t feel accepted by people, especially the women whom he loved. I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to write about his suicide attempt, which led to him being a C5 quadriplegic (that means he had a spinal cord injury to the C5 vertebra in the neck that resulted in paralysis in his upper and lower body), at age 21. He also talks about sex quite a lot. This may be off-putting for some people who might prefer something more “clean,” yet this addresses a common stereotype about disabled people: infantilization. Subconsciously or consciously, there’s this notion that because people with disabilities are incapable of doing certain things, they’re not able to be intimate with others. Rieck dispels that idea very quickly as he discusses his relationships with various women throughout the years, how they were able to stimulate sex, and even showing his penis to his male childhood friend when they were kids.

And, Rieck does this with a sense of humor. There are interludes sprinkled in the memoir like the one called Disability Stereotype and QuadAntics. In that one, he talks about the stereotypes that are commonly associated with disabled people. He created images that combated those labels that he called QuadAntics. Two of my favorite designs that he did were the Quad Spud (p. 256) and the phrase “Can You check to See if I have a Wedgie?…Dressing Directions” (p. 264). 

If I had one issue, it would be that he does some listing. What I mean by this is that he talks about something that happened in his life and moves on without ruminating or coming back to it. This primarily happens in the first half before Robert becomes quadriplegic. I had a similar problem with the second part of Eric Idle’s autobiography Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography.

Spoken: A Memoir Sprinkled With a Little Quadriplegia by Robert A. Rieck Jr., is a special story about a man dealing with many ups and downs in his life. He’s very open about what he’s been through and how he felt about each of his obstacles and accomplishments. Also, he’s very comfortable talking about sex. And, he does much of this with humor, sincerity, and Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development. I would recommend it to people who love reading about extraordinary lives and want more stories by disabled authors. I have never read a memoir of a life like Robert’s, and I’m glad I did.

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