Hello, I'm Chloe Valtman and this is Book of the Day from NPR.

Works of fiction involving characters with disabilities often cast them as villains or heroes.

Shakespeare's King Richard III with his chryphosis of the spine and the blind Marvel character Daredevil are two cases in point.

But in his new memoir, Leg, the story of a

limb and the boy who grew from it, author Greg Marshall uses graphic scenes of everyday life

and bombastic humour to create a refreshingly down-to-earth vision of what living with cerebral

palsy is like. In an interview with NPR's Scott Simon, Marshall talks about growing up in a

family that was struggling with so much illness, his mother with cancer and his father, ALS,

that they did everything they could to minimise their son's condition. For years, they told him he had

tight tendons. Marshall himself doesn't truck in euphemisms. The author gleefully describes in detail

the ins and outs of sex as a person who's both disabled and gay. Here's Scott Simon.

In the US, national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts,

diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant

events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your

podcasts. Leg by Greg Marshall is a memoir that is intimate,

and I mean that in all ways,

insightful and often laugh out loud funny.

That's quite an achievement.

When you're writing about a mother who contends with cancer,

a father immobilized by ALS, four siblings, and your own motor disorder

that your parents decided to minimize and keep from you except everybody else in the world

...