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THREE QUARTERS, TWO DIMES, AND A NICKEL: A MEMOIR OF BECOMING WHOLE
by Steve Fiffer
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Free Press (1999-03-12)
ISBN: 068485418X
EAN: 9780684854182
Dewy Decimal #: 362.43092
Hardcover: 288 pages
SKU: BX036-070312009
Condition: Used: Like New First
Comments: Clean and shiny. Like new, not pricecut. No remainder mark.
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Editorial Reviews
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Amazon.com Review
Despite the fact that it opens with a paralyzing wrestling injury, Three Quarters, Two Dimes, and a Nickel by Steve Fiffer is one upbeat memoir. After exposing the reader to the numbing psychological aftershock of the injury he suffered at the age of 17--"The accident had fractured more than my fifth cervical vertebra, broken more than my neck. It had fractured reality, broken time"--the book quickly gives way to a sincere and sustained optimism, free of self-pity and sentimentality. The horrific event is effectively turned into a defining experience rather than the primary focus of the rest of his life. Just seven months after being told by doctors that he would never walk again, he manages to enter his first class at Yale University on crutches rather than in a wheelchair. That he would someday walk again seems less a dream than an inevitability: "I wasn't supposed to walk again. I wanted to walk. So I did." But there is much more to Fiffer's coming-of-age tale than his efforts to retrain his legs. In poignant descriptions of personal awakenings, sexual stirrings (and frustrations), and the common desire for acceptance, "becoming whole" extends far beyond the task of dealing with a broken vertebra. He may not be a dollar bill, he explains, but "three quarters, two dimes, and nickel" add up to the same thing in the end. Some of the book's more colorful and moving passages feature Dick Woit, a former pro-football player who subsists entirely on Cool Whip and whom Fiffer enlists for some tough love. In the manic guru-cum-trainer's first meeting with Fiffer, Woit refers to him as "Crip," promptly instructs him to hit the deck and perform some sit-ups, then declares his effort, and current physical state, "pathetic." Thus motivated, Fiffer begins regularly attending Coach Woit's gym to battle for control of his legs and his life. His struggle to walk makes his story intriguing, even suspenseful, while his grappling with larger issues makes it universal and inspiring. Told with candor and plenty of humor, Three Quarters, Two Dimes, and a Nickel beautifully defines the subtle differences between simply enduring an unimaginable twist of fate and actually making something good of it. --Shawn Carkonen
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Product Description
What would you do if you were seventeen years old and broke your neck? It's tough enough to stand on the verge of adulthood without the extra burden of not being able to stand at all. Steve Fiffer had his whole life ahead of him in December 1967 when he fractured his fifth cervical vertebra in a wrestling accident at school, shattering his dreams. The diagnosis was quadriplegia, and his parents were told that he would never walk again. Steve, however, was not content to accept such a fate. He had always been taught that he was a leader, not a follower, and he was not going to take this news lying down. Within five months he was out of the hospital, within seven he was on crutches, and within nine he was beginning his freshman year at Yale University. And most remarkable of all, he never lost his wisecracking sense of humor or his hunger for all that life has to offer. Three Quarters, Two Dimes, and a Nickel is Steve Fiffer's story of his coming of age, and of how he created a normal life for himself despite his injury. Steve refused to be consumed or defined by his physical condition; he may not be a dollar bill, he explains, but he's still "three quarters, two dimes, and a nickel." His battle to come back from his injury casts into sharp relief the drama of becoming an adult and wrestling with issues of identity, relationships, and ambition. We join him around the dinner table as he rebuilds his once-distant relationship with his father and gains a new appreciation of their bond; we agonize with him as he tries to find true love (or at least lose his virginity) despite his self-consciousness about his physical awkwardness, and we join him at the Lawson YMCA in downtown Chicago, where he rebuilds his body under the watchful eye of the manic physical-fitness coach Dick Woit, a retired football star who puts Steve through a sort of boot camp to raise his sights even higher and propel him off his crutches for good. Part guru, part drill instructor, Woit helps Steve to develop the mental toughness to put the injury behind him and to embrace adulthood and all its responsibilities. By turns poignant, darkly comic, and ultimately triumphant, Three Quarters, Two Dimes, and a Nickel is an affirmation of how the ordinary joys of life can win out even in extraordinary circumstances.
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Customer Reviews
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Self-indulgent and suffering from sadly stilted prose
Rating  (1)
Date: 2005-03-13
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I saw this book in a library and thought, Gosh, sounds inspiring, I'll take a look. I read it. What a waste of time. Why do publishing houses allow aggrieved hack writers to sob and take shots at the rest of the human race for 280 plus pages? Don't make my mistake. Save your time for another book.
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A valuable book for those injured and their families
Rating  (5)
Date: 2004-12-17
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Being a spinal cord injury survivor, I found this book indispensible to my recovery and have recommended it to others who have been severely injured.
The book has been criticized for the fact it implies if you are willing to work hard enough you can walk again after a severe spinal cord injury. As has been said many times, if hard work were all it takes, many people in wheelchairs would be running the Boston Marathon. I think the readers who only see the above point of view are missing the author's message and the whole purpose of writing this book. The explanation of the title of the book within the book is the key to the entire book.
I recommend the book very highly to the recently injured and to their families.
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Real life inspiration with a hilarious character
Rating (5)
Date: 1999-07-15
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I want to train with Dick Woit! What a great character. I loved this book because the author doesn't portray himself as a superhuman martyr. Publishing this straightforward autobiography must have taken at least as much courage and guts as rebuilding his body did.
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An inspiring, skillfully written account
Rating (5)
Date: 1999-06-30
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I read this book aboard an airplane, not knowing the first thing about it, but being intrigued by its title. It turned out to be a coming of age story like none other I have read. The author's charmed, sixties' adolescence is drastically altered by a high school wrestling accident. The prognosis regarding recovery is anything but encouraging. The events through which Fiffer is led to his rehabilitation make a riveting account. Besides his own journey, we are also treated to a poignant look at a family -- especially a father -- coming to terms with an unforseen challenge. This is all told from the unique perspective of one who finds he must adapt during a period when a society must also adapt to a dizzying array of upheavals. How Fiffer takes his first and then ultimate steps on that road is what makes such a compelling perspective. The writing is clean and skilled. At all times, I felt like I was in the hands of somebody who had an unfailing instinct for what needed to be delivered to the reader. I recommend this book for anyone who is in the mood for an intelligent, well-told story, free of cliches and without a hint of self-pity. That's probably due to the fact that by the end of it, Fiffer seems to have achieved the kind of strength and enlightenment of one who has looked tragedy in the face and told it to take a walk.
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I HOPED FOR MORE
Rating (1)
Date: 1999-06-01
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book was an impulse buy for me -- so much for trusting your instincts. Somewhere in the author's life is a good, inspirational story, I think, but it didn't seem to come out. The truth is that after awhile I really came to dislike this man -- how he treats people, how he holds petty grudges, how he uses the buddy system (from his father's business connections to NY Times columnist Ira Berkow) to win advantages in life. It was really bothersome after awhile. Typical is how he sneers about an old female friend, whom he -- oh, his mother does the speaking -- labels as a "user" and then he pouts when she can't afford to travel to his father's funeral. I wanted to slap him. He is so petty and so unforgiving of other people's human flaws at times that it overshadows his good points and what should be the heart of his story -- that he doesn't whine about his injury, that he does bust his butt to rehabilitate himself, that he does have a heroic spirit. Rather than a book about Fiffer, I came away wanting to read one about his mother, who put up with him and probably a lot else he didn't see, or Dick Woit, the trainer who helped him. They came away as people I wanted to meet, the real heroes of this story.
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