Sanatorium by Abi Palmer. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.
Abi Palmer is an artist and a writer. She is also living with multiple chronic illnesses, including psoriatic arthritis and a connective tissue disorder. Sanatorium is a memoir, told in fragments, about what it means to be disabled, deal with chronic pain, and navigate the ever-expanding wellness industry.
The narrative jumps between Palmer’s month-long stay at a thermal water rehabilitation centre in Budapest — the sanatorium of the title — and her efforts to continue her recovery once she returns home. This shifting perspective captures the nonlinear nature of recovery and adds to the losing track of time feeling that pain so often causes.
In Budapest, Palmer’s days are divided into blocks of time revolving around the thermal water pool that people traveled from all over the world to attend. Between her allotted stints in the sulfurous water, Palmer tries to balance the improvements promised by physical therapy and the other therapies that she is prescribed, with the risk of flare-ups triggered by the exertion of completing those same therapies.
In London, Palmer buys an inflatable bathtub because her flat doesn’t have one and she cannot get clearance to install one. She is determined to keep up the hydrotherapy, as best she can. The inflatable bathtub does what it needs to, most of the time, but it is not the same. How can it be, given the precariousness of the situation.
Sanatorium is a blend of straightforward memoir, prose poetry, reportage, meditations on water, reflections on Saint Teresa of Ávila, and fantasy. Palmer’s writing is lucid, intense, and often stark and humorous, leading to an exploration of a body — a disabled body, a female body, a disabled female body — that is extraordinary in its scope.
I want to press a copy of Sanatorium into the hands of everyone I know. Disabled and chronically ill people will recognise much of what Palmer discusses, even if their circumstances differ. For non-disabled people and people who do not experience chronic pain, Sanatorium provides a glimpse into the lived experience of Abi Palmer, yes, but also of their family, friends, colleagues, and loved ones.
No two chronic pain experiences are the same, but with Sanatorium Abi Palmer skilfully adds her voice to the growing — and much needed — body of work about disabled and chronically ill bodies.
Sanatorium by Abi Palmer is published by Penned in the Margins and is available in paperback and ebook format.