Disability, Literature, Genre: Representation and Affect in Contemporary Fiction REPRESENTATIONS: H E a LT H , DI SA BI L I T Y, CULTURE and SOCIETY
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Disability, Literature, Genre: Representation and Affect in Contemporary Fiction REPRESENTATIONS: H E A LT H , DI SA BI L I T Y, CULTURE AND SOCIETY Series Editor Stuart Murray, University of Leeds Robert McRuer, George Washington University This series provides a ground-breaking and innovative selection of titles that showcase the newest interdisciplinary research on the cultural representations of health and disability in the contemporary social world. Bringing together both subjects and working methods from literary studies, film and cultural studies, medicine and sociology, ‘Representations’ is scholarly and accessible, addressed to researchers across a number of academic disciplines, and prac- titioners and members of the public with interests in issues of public health. The key term in the series will be representations. Public interest in ques- tions of health and disability has never been stronger, and as a consequence cultural forms across a range of media currently produce a never-ending stream of narratives and images that both reflect this interest and generate its forms. The crucial value of the series is that it brings the skilled study of cultural narratives and images to bear on such contemporary medical concerns. It offers and responds to new research paradigms that advance understanding at a scholarly level of the interaction between medicine, culture and society; it also has a strong commitment to public concerns surrounding such issues, and maintains a tone and point of address that seek to engage a general audience. Other books in the series Anatomy as Spectacle: Public Exhibitions of the Body from 1700 to the Present Elizabeth Stephens Disability Studies and Spanish Culture: Films, Novels, the Comic and the Public Exhibition Benjamin Fraser Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature: Prostitutes, Aging Women and Saints Encarnación Juárez-Almendros Articulating Bodies: The Narrative Form of Disability and Illness in Victorian Fiction Kylee-Anne Hingston Disability, Literature, Genre Representation and Affect in Contemporary Fiction Ria Cheyne Disability, Literature, Genre LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2019 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2019 Ria Cheyne The right of Ria Cheyne to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-78962-077-1 eISBN 978-1-78962-489-2 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster ‘Disability is the lifeblood of emotion.’ —Brian Cheyne In memory of my dad. Contents Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Affective Encounters and Reflexive Representations 1 Affect and the Disability Encounter 8 Disability Studies, Emotion, and Exploitation 13 Genre Fiction and Reflexive Representations 17 Overview 21 1 Horror: Fearful Bodyminds 27 Why Disability Studies is Afraid of Horror 30 Why Horror Scholars are Afraid of Disability 33 Stephen King’s Duma Key 35 Monstrous Uncertainty: Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter Novels 40 Conclusion: Disturbing Representations 50 2 Character and Closure: Disability in Crime 53 Disabled Detectives 56 Affect and Achievement in Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme Novels 57 Investigating Critical Practices: The Detective and the Supercrip 62 Unreflexive Representations: Peter Robinson’s Friend of the Devil 65 Disabled Villains 69 Ambiguous Identities and Fantasies of Identification 72 Conclusion: Disability and the Altar of Closure 78 viii Disability, Literature, Genre 3 Wondrous Texts: Science Fiction 81 Disability and Wonder 82 Science Fiction and Wonder 87 Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga 93 Affective Uncertainty: Peter Watts’s Rifters Trilogy 98 Conclusion 107 4 Fantasy: Affirmation and Enchantment 109 Disability in Fantasy 113 Metanarratives and the Mega-Novel: George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ 115 Grimdark and Disability: Joe Abercrombie’s ‘The First Law’ 124 Conclusion 133 5 Desirable Futures: Romance 135 Undesirable Futures 139 Romance, Cure, and the Curative Imaginary 142 Affective Imaginings and Reflexive Representations: Mary Balogh’s ‘Simply’ Quartet 152 Conclusion: Feeling Disability 159 Conclusion: Reading and Feeling 161 Genre Reading as Affective Practice 163 Valuing Genre(s) 166 Evaluative Approaches and Methodological Imperatives 169 Works Cited 173 Disability in Genre Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography 187 Index 201 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements ustained academic attention to disability in genre fiction is relatively Snew, but reader and fan engagement with it is not. For years, readers, writers, and others involved in genre communities have discussed and investigated disability in genre fiction: making lists of novels featuring specific disabilities or tropes; debating topics such as the appeal of the disabled detective or the erasure of disability from romance novel covers; and critiquing representations they find discomforting or prob- lematic. In accordance with the genre conventions of the academic book, this volume draws primarily on peer-reviewed scholarship published in academic books and journals. I am mindful of the ways in which such an approach risks ‘reproducing a reductive binary in which academic practices surrounding texts are deemed critical and nonacademic prac- tices are deemed uncritical’ (Stephanie Moody, 120–21). I want to make clear at the outset my debt to the readers who came before me, and who shared their knowledge, insights, ideas, and frustrations. In addition to readers and reader–critics, this project builds upon, argues with, and was inspired by the work of scholars in disability studies, literary studies, and affect studies. These intellectual debts are, I hope, adequately signalled in the pages that follow. Here I acknowledge those who provided crucial support, encouragement, and guidance. Stuart Murray and David Bolt supported my initial forays into cultural disability studies; in the intervening years, their belief in my work has sustained me when my confidence faltered. My compatriots Laura Waite, Irene Rose, and Clare Barker have supported this project—and me—wholeheartedly, over a number of years. At Liverpool Hope University I have benefited from sharing ideas and experiences with wonderful colleagues in disability studies and literary x Disability, Literature, Genre studies, and in particular have been supported by Claire Penketh, Shirley Potts, Kenneth Newport, and Cindy Hamilton. The vibrant community centred around the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies at Hope has also been a constant source of new ideas. Both the disability studies and genre studies communities have been incredibly supportive of this project. Many, many people contributed feedback, reading suggestions, practical assistance, or encourage- ment as this project developed. I’m grateful to all of them but would particularly like to acknowledge Kathryn Allan, Suzanne Angus, Alice Bennett, Mark Bould, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Dan Goodley, Veronica Hollinger, Ruth Kircher, Rebecca Mallett, Nickianne Moody, Andy Sawyer, and Anne Waldschmidt. An Goris, Maria Ramos-Garcia, Laura Vivanco, and Maryan Wherry gave valuable feedback on early versions of the romance chapter, while Ruth Gould and her colleagues at disability arts organisation DaDaFest gave me valuable opportunities to share my ideas with audiences outside academia. As I made my first tentative forays into disability studies I was lucky enough to meet the late Paul Longmore, who encouraged me to continue; his work as both scholar and activist remains an ongoing source of inspiration. Particular thanks are due to the anonymous reviewers whose feed- back helped make this a substantially better book; to Alison Welsby and Jenny Howard at Liverpool University Press, and to Representations series editor Stuart Murray (again) and former series editor Robert McRuer. I’d also like to acknowledge the encouragement and input of my PhD supervisor, Adam Roberts, in the early stages of the project. Adam wisely pointed out that writing a book that covered five different genres of fiction might not be the best choice of postdoctoral project, not least because of the sheer volume of reading involved. He was right, but I’m glad I didn’t listen. In 2014 Gladstone’s Library awarded me a scholarship that was a turning point in revising the book manuscript, and since then it has become a haven where I do some of my best thinking and writing. Key sections of this book were completed at a series of writing retreats sponsored by Liverpool Hope University, and I am appreciative both of the institution’s support for those events and the insights of colleagues who participated. I’m also grateful to Carol Devine and the Inter Library Loan team at Liverpool Hope. My family have lived with this book for a long time, and all helped in different ways. I’d like to thank them for their support, and for all the times they refrained from asking how the book was going! Most of all, I’m grateful to my husband, Curt, who helped in a thousand ways, and whose support of my work exceeds my ability to put it into words. Introduction: Affective Encounters and Reflexive Representations Introduction: