Paperback Original
Price: $18.00

The daughter of renowned composer Alan Hovhaness, Jean Nandi grew up without the shadow of disability until the age of twenty, when symptoms of muscle weakness and pain marked the beginning of a slowly progressive disability. In the face of steadily increasing pressures brought on by extensive medical treatments, Nandi would spend time traveling abroad. Trained as a biologist, she began her professional life with a scientific career, wending her way through several careers, marriage to an East Indian scientist, and pursuit of her first love, music. When she was no longer able to perform or teach, she became the author and then publisher of books on harpsichord playing and teaching.

"Coming out" as a person with a disability, Jean Nandi began honing her skills in the area of disability advocacy during the nineties, leading both a county and then a city commission. She developed successful grass-roots organizations devoted to improving accessibility and health care for people with disabilities.

Review: "This book is a testimony of triumph...in these times so lacking in examples of virtue, we see a heroine who has also scaled the summits of moral refinement...a true model of human achievement and just plain sterling kindness, compassion, and humility."
-Nancy Becker Kennedy, playwright and award-winning writer and composer

"Jean Nandi has given us a gift---her personal story of how she never let anything, even severe illness, defeat her. Her story is one of courage and inspiration, two attributes we all need, no matter what our situation."
-Shirley Dean, former Mayor of Berkeley, California