Illness and Disability

The depredations of time on the ageing human is an unusual topic for a young writer to confront, especially in a first novel, but why not, if the negative capability is not wanting? After all, it’s common enough for an older writer to inhabit young characters. The difference is, of course, that a young writer hasn’t yet been old. In Fiona McFarlane’s first novel, The Night Guest, the main centre of consciousness, through whom the whole narrative is perceived, is more than twice the author’s age. In an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, McFarlane revealed that both her grandmothers suffered from dementia and that writing about Ruth, a seventy-five-year-old widow who is clearly becoming increasingly confused (the D-word is never used), is an act of homage and remembrance.

In January this year the New York Times ran a controversial review article titled ‘The Problem with Memoirs’, in which staffer Neil Genzlinger praised ‘the lost art of shutting up’. He heaped scorn on ‘our current age of oversharing’ and on the accompanying glut of memoirs on every imaginable aspect of human experience. But he reserved particular scorn for what he identified as the latest trendy topic: ‘books by parents, siblings and teachers of people with autism.’ He advised, ‘If you’re jumping on a bandwagon, make sure you have better credentials than the people already on it.’

For Gabrielle Carey, the sight of her mother’s bare feet, soles facing, was almost unbearable. Naked and defenceless, she had never seen them from that angle before. Other parts of a loved one’s anatomy could produce such a feeling – the nape of a beloved neck or an innocent elbow – but on this occasion it was the old feet projecting from the elderly and suddenly compromised body, strapped to a trolley, awaiting a CT scan. The daughter ‘didn’t quite know what to do’, which turns out to be a revealing remark. She wonders if she should stroke her arm or not, but before offering any such support she is asked to leave the cubicle.

As survival memoirs go, Lifelines is unusual in at least one respect. Peter Couche has managed to write this book over a period of thirteen years, while almost completely paralysed and unable to speak after a stroke. With the small amount of movement left in his index finger, he uses a computer to write.

In 1983, Bill Dodd was nearly eighteen when he dived into a river and nearly lost his life. Dodd warns against diving carelessly into waterholes: ‘It can give you a lot of unnecessary hassles, take it from me.’ This laconic understatement is characteristic of Dodd’s account of his life. He is now a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair for life. Yet, without straining credibility, Dodd manages to convince you that he is a lucky man.