You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

January 17, 2011
As a child, Sellers moved between households; her alcoholic father drank all night, slept all day, and wore women's clothing on evenings out. Her schizophrenic mother provided no respite; windows were nailed shut in her house, light bulbs were bare, sponge baths were taken in the garage. Sellers remembers watching kids play and "wondering which ones had mothers who would adopt an extra girl." But it's her realization that she suffers from prosopagnosia (face blindness) that ultimately propels her to seek professional help. At her core, she learns, she is a product of her condition; she'd never married, had no children, constantly sought new houses, jobs, cities, people. She was "only comfortable in ambivalence." To recover she must utterly change her life. In one excruciating incident, Seller's listens to a companion complain about a co-worker seated, unbeknownst to her coworker, nearby; though Sellers can see him, she can't recognize him, ultimately ruining another friendship. But with the help of a therapist, Sellers begins telling people about her condition. Sellers handles the jagged transitions between past and present deftly, explaining her life as a story of "how we love each other in spite of immense limitations."

In her memoir, professor and author Heather Sellers comes to terms with her inability to recognize faces, a lifelong neurological affliction. In this work she recounts how her condition affected her as a child growing up in an eccentric family and how it affects her as an adult. Narrator Karen White does an admirable job giving voice to Sellers' chaotic life. Such a story--of marriage and divorce, a schizophrenic mother and an alcoholic father, along with Heather's inability to recognize people's facial features--could easily be presented in an overdramatic manner. Instead of succumbing to this pitfall, White manages to imbue Sellers's words with appropriate emotion. Her skillful narration communicates the turmoil that Sellers has endured. Author and narrator will have listeners hanging on every word. J.L.K. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine