The lifelong process of learning, of constantly weaving the tapestry of who you are and who you will be, is never without its challenges. That being said, it’s often easier than the process of unlearning old beliefs and behaviours that we wish to discard. Try to pull out one thread, and you’ll find that the whole thing is liable to start coming apart in ways you didn’t anticipate.

Adelle Purdham discovered this midway through her second pregnancy, when she learned that her daughter Elyse had Down syndrome. The news thrust her into a complicated sort of grief – she found herself crying both because she didn’t want a baby with Down syndrome, and because she didn’t want to be the type of person who was upset by having a baby with Down syndrome. This is the thread that she began to pick at. In working to change her ableist world view, Purdham had to confront a version of herself that she hadn’t wanted to admit existed. The subsequent unravelling (and re-weaving) forms the basis of her debut collection of essays, I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself.

Though Purdham’s work does frequently touch on her experiences with Elyse, she also writes about other facets of her life – the low points in her marriage during COVID-19 lockdowns, her connection with the natural world, the around-the-world trip that she and her family embarked on in 2019. Her strongest essays centre on her ambivalence about being a mother, the ways she feels both enriched and consumed by it. Purdham is always candid, and doesn’t shy away from describing the frustration, exhaustion, and rage that motherhood sometimes makes her feel – though there are moments of joy too, of course.

The challenge with such candour is that, in some instances, it can be hard to parse in the context of short, interconnected essays in which readers don’t get the chance to know Purdham and her family well enough to understand their dynamics. For example, in the essay “Extramarital Sex,” Purdham relates a conversation with her husband in which she asks how he would respond to a hypothetical situation in which she sleeps with someone else. He is hurt and asks her to drop the subject, but she won’t. Is this a typical interaction for them? Is she a frequent boundary-pusher who can’t take no for an answer? Probably not, but it’s a jarring piece that doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. Moments like these might have been better served by a more traditional memoir structure, in which readers get a broader understanding of Purdham’s relationships with those around her – otherwise they do more to derail than add to the narrative.

That being said, I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself has more enlightening moments than it does bewildering ones. Purdham’s prose is clear, often lyrical, and fast-paced enough to keep any reader engaged. This collection is a strong beginning that surely signals more and even better to come.