In 1976 Gelya Frank began writing about the life of Diane DeVries, a woman born with all the physical and mental equipment she would need to live in our society - except arms and legs. Frank was 28 years old, DeVries 26. This book records the relationship that developed between the women over the next 20 years. An empathic listener and participant in DeVries's life, and a scholar of the feminist and disability rights movements, Frank argues that Diane DeVries is a perfect example of an American woman coming of age in the second half of the 20th century. By addressing the dynamics of power in ethnographic representation, Frank lays the critical groundwork for a new genre, "cultural biography". Challenged to examine the cultural sources of her initial image of DeVries as limited and flawed, Frank discovers that DeVries is gutsy, buoyant, sexy - and definitely not a victim. While she analyzes the portrayal of women with disabilities in popular culture - from limbless performers to suicidal heroines on the TV news - Frank's encounters with DeVries lead her to come to terms with her own "invisible disabilities" motivating the study.