Donna Williams’s ‘Triumph’: Looking for ‘the Place in the Middle’ at Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn order to examine the complexity of the autism memoir boom and its relation to the self-help ethos, we investigate published autie-biographies as part of a production cycle that has to negotiate between the demands of the individual’s unique story, the expectations of a community and a commercial rationale. More precisely, we focus on Jessica Kingsley Publishers (JKP), a leading international niche publisher in the field of neurological and cognitive differences. Firstly, we study the forms and formats offered by JKP as specific technologies of writing that affect the kind of identities that could be produced. Secondly, we focus on the ‘coaxing strategies’ that are used to streamline the life writing production. We investigate how JKP contributes to the proliferation of autie-biographies as well as to the creation of what Lauren Berlant has called ‘intimate publics’. Thirdly, we focus on the oeuvre of one of JKP’s star-authors, Donna Williams. By combining textual and paratextual analysis with qualitative data from interviews we will show how Williams exemplifies the quest and triumph ethos underlying the (commercial) disability memoir, while at the same time undermines and resists the notion of progress on different levels in her work.