The Unreliable Narrator’s Deconstruction of the Illness Narrative in Lauren Slater’s Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

Year 2022, Issue: 58, 51 - 72, 15.11.2022

Aylin Pekanık

Abstract

Within the larger scope of life narratives, illness narratives occupy a significant space both as honest expressions of often silenced, marginalized experiences and medically important accounts of how illnesses manifest in individuals. However, their sensitive nature necessitates that they are subjected to the overwhelming expectations of authenticity, evidence, and agency in order to be seen as legitimate. Lauren Slater’s illness memoir Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2000) challenges these expectations by constructing its narrative through lies, metaphors, and an apparent dismissal of the conventional autobiographical pact. This approach acts as a deconstruction of both the expectations of life narratives and how they specifically manifest in the perception of illness narratives. As Slater makes a different pact that prioritizes emotional truth over factual events, she asserts her agency and presents an authentic, candid, and multifaceted account of chronic illness that refuses to offer a conventional, digestible, marketable story of triumph against adversity.

Keywords

Lauren Slater, Illness Narrative, Epilepsy, Chronic Illness, Unreliable Narrator

References

• Ahuja, Nitin K. “Why Doctors Like Me Need to Read Chronic Illness Memoirs.” Electric Literature, 01 Jul. 2021, electricliterature. com/why-doctors-like-me-need-to-read-chronic-illnessmemoirs
• Arstein-Kerslake, Anne and Eilionóir Flynn. “The Right To Legal Agency: Domination, Disability and the Protections of Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”
• International Journal of Law in Context, vol. 13, no. 1, Cambridge UP, 2017, pp. 22-38.
• Belling, Catherine. “Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir.” NYU LitMed Database, 13 Apr. 2001, medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/11842 Cantrell, Kate. “Lying in All Honesty: Capturing Truth in Women’s Confessional Memoir.” LiNQ, vol. 40, no. 1, 2013, pp. 76-86.
• Conway, Kathlyn. Illness and the Limits of Expression. U of Michigan P, 2007.
• Couser. G. Thomas. “Disability as Metaphor: What’s Wrong with Lying.” Prose Studies, vol. 27, no. 1/2, Routledge, 2005, pp. 141- 154.
• Diedrich, Lisa. “Lying and the Performance of Patienthood.” The Patient, edited by Harold Schweizer and Kimberly Myers, Bucknell UP, 2010, pp. 131–52.
• Donaldson, Elizabeth J. “Lauren Slater’s Lying: Metaphorical Memoir and Pathological Pathography.” Gender Forum, vol. 26, 2009, pp. 1-9.
• Galbus, Julia. Review of Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir. Modern Language Studies, vol. 33, no. 1/2, 2003, pp. 99-102.
• Grisolia, James S. Review of Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir. Epilepsy and Behavior, vol. 1, 2000, pp. 455-456.
• Grubbs, Lindsey. “Lauren Slater and the Experts: Malingering, Masquerade, and the Disciplinary Control of Diagnosis.” Literature and Medicine, vol. 33, no. 1, 2015, pp. 23-51.
• Haas, Lidija. “Memoirs of Disease and Disbelief.” The New Yorker, 28 May 2018, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/04/ memoirs-of-disease-and-disbelief
• Hawkins, Anne Hunsaker. Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathology. Purdue UP, 1999.
• Lejeune, Philippe. “The Autobiographical Contract.” French Literary Theory Today, edited by Tzvetan Todorov, translated by R. Carter, Cambridge UP, 1982, pp. 192-222.
• “Memoir.” Journal of Medical Humanities, vol. 29, Springer, 2008, pp. 163–172.
• Miller, Laura. “The Last Word; Unpacking Skinner’s Box.” The New York Times, 2 May 2004,www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/books/ the-last-word-unpacking-skinner-s-box.Html
• Nettelbeck, Amanda. “The Transfigured Body and the Ethical Turn in Australian Illness
• Price, Margaret. “‘Her Pronouns Wax and Wane’: Psychosocial Disability, Autobiography, and Counter-Diagnosis.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 11-33.
• Saris, A. Jamie. “Telling Stories: Life Histories, Illness Narratives, and Institutional Landscapes.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, vol. 19, 1995, pp. 39-72.
• Siebers, Tobin. “Disability as Masquerade.” Literature and Medicine, vol. 23, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1-22.
• ---. “Disability Studies and the Future of Identity Politics.” Identity Politics Reconsidered, edited by Linda Martín Alcoff, et al., 2006, pp. 10–30.
• Slater, Lauren. “Encounter: Lauren Slater.” Interview by Lee Gutkind and Pagan Kennedy, Creative Nonfiction, 2011, creativenonfiction.org/writing/encounter-lauren-slater. Accessed 31 Dec. 2021.
• ---. Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir. Random House, 2012. Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. U of Minnesota P, 2001.
• Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978. Vickers, Neil. “Illness Narratives.” A History of English Autobiography, ed. Adam Smyth. Cambridge UP, 2016, pp. 388-401.