Who made it?: Zach Anner
Where is it?: your local library, hopefully, or http://ifatbirthyoudontsucceed.com/ and Amazon:
Length: 352 pages
Zach Anner is one of the most prominent disabled celebrities who is changing the public image of what being disabled is like. His autobiography If At Birth You Don’t Succeed jumps around in the first thirty years of his life to present the most interesting moments in the optimistic tone of his comedy. Having had his own TV show on OWN and a few hit web series, Mr. Anner has always connected warmly to everyone he meets while acknowledging his disability but never in a way that garners pity or sadness. He’s happy and having fun, and why shouldn’t everyone else have fun with him? Cerebral palsy and a wandering eye may be the first thing some people notice about him, but there are so many more interesting facts to know. This book shares the best public success, then the worst gastrointestinal challenge while in pursuit of that public success, then all the times he found a challenge but just kept rolling along anyway. The very first thing everyone should know about Zach is that he finds something to be happy about no matter what circumstances he finds himself in, and he can take jokes as well as he makes them.
Zach has made his life’s work about traveling and recording his experiences as a disabled traveler. Reading his book, it seems like it never occurred to him there was any reason not to travel or that his disability should ever keep him at home. From an early childhood story of running away from home with intent to meet his celebrity crush Cindy Crawford to his Riding Shotgun webisode about exploring tree villages in Canada, once Zach sets his mind to a travel destination he always finds a way to have a decent adventure. His brother or friends help him along the way to leave his chair and climb up to the tree village even after a larger public bridge forbids him to cross it. In another story he road trips to NASA to pilot the Mars rover training simulation.
As a female reader, I did find some of the early chapters tried my patience with Zach’s attitude toward pursuing romance. His sense of humor with regard to dating comes on very strong, appearance focused, and a bit objectifying to portray girls as potential lays. (This is true for most of his dating stories though not for his appraisal of the female chef who was the other person in the final round of the OWN network reality show competition.) But he also comes across as sincere and a gentleman who actually does value the feelings of any lady he spends time with. Once he meets his wife Gillian Grassie, a harpist and singer-songwriter whose music is beautiful and also worth checking out on YouTube, they travel together for a bit before getting married. Accessibility barriers don’t stop Zach from attending Gillian’s concert in Germany or visiting her family home, and then she visits Zach in California and they go to Disneyland.
In the end, I left this book with a feeling that no excuse is good enough for not pursuing your dreams on some level, yet you also have to forgive yourself for imperfections and just roll with whatever punches life throws at you.
