In Alyson Gerber’s ‘Braced,’ Heroine Confronts Scoliosis
Rachel, heroine of “Braced,” is an avid soccer player. Image by Getty Images
As a young Jewish girl growing up in Andover, Massachusetts, Alyson Gerber wore a brace, like her mother, a nurse who also had an abnormal curvature of the spine. Gerber’s father was a doctor at the local hospital. Yet her parents’ medical professions didn’t save her from pain or embarrassment. Gerber’s debut novel, Braced, is about a middle school student’s struggles wearing a back brace due to scoliosis. “Braced,” her debut novel, came out in March.
I spoke with Gerber about the story behind the novel.
You had to wear a back brace during your Bat Mitzvah because of your scoliosis. Now your poignant debut book “Braced” centers on a girl named Rachel in a back brace. Why a kid’s book?
I decided to write about scoliosis because when I did an MFA in Writing for Children at The New School, an instructor there told me that she writes from a time of pain in her life. When I received my brace, I hated it, and it felt like everything froze. I wanted to go back to that difficult period of my life, and share it with other children going through a similar experience.
You worked at the Central Synagogue in New York, teaching third to sixth grade students full-time after you graduated from college. Did that inspire you?
Yes. I met a lot of kids facing big challenges in school and in social situations, and learned a lot from working with those families. It was an opportunity for me to start looking back on what I’d been through at that age.
Your editor Cheryl Klein mentioned in Pen America’s “Pen Equity Project” that reading the experiences Rachel has in “Braced” gave her “a sense of not just being seen, but being loved by a book, 25 years later.” How did her connection shape your own experience with scoliosis?
When I got my brace at age eleven, I hated it, and felt insecure. Cheryl was a few years younger when she got her brace and had a very different response. She felt comforted by the brace, and appreciated that it was helping to keep her spine straight. Speaking with Cheryl and other people who also wore a back brace helped me see my own experience through a new lens.
Is this novel about your scoliosis an accurate representation of what happened to you?
My heart is with Rachel, but everything else is fiction. I felt alone. At the time, I didn’t know anyone else who was being treated for scoliosis, and I didn’t open up to any of my friends, or give them the chance to support me. I added soccer to “Braced,” because I felt it would help to tell Rachel’s story.
Now that you’ve gotten past the trauma of wearing a brace, do you ever look back and dwell on it?
Wearing a back brace for more than two years had a huge impact on my life. It was a challenge and certainly a trauma for me to feel like I was wearing my insides on the outside for everyone to see. But it also made me a stronger and more capable person. As an author, I have the amazing opportunity to visit schools and meet all kinds of students where I have the chance to talk about my experiences with scoliosis.
In your first essay “Family Fusion” in “Chicken Soup For The Soul,” you wrote that your mother is a nurse who also had scoliosis. As a 32-year-old newly married woman living in Brooklyn, do you ever worry your scoliosis will be passed down to your children. Do you think “Braced” will help them find the acceptance they need, should it come to that?
Passing down scoliosis to my children is on my mind a lot. It would certainly be a challenge for me, yet I am confident that if I were in that situation, I would do my best to help them through monitoring and/or treatment. I believe that Braced would be a big help.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Darren Sung is a sophomore studying Literary Arts at The New School in New York.
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