Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Collaborative compositions have become a subgenre of illness narratives. A few examples are Sandra Butler and Barbara Rosenblum's Cancer in Two Voices (1991), Jerry Arterburn and Steve Arterburn's How Will I Tell My Mother? (1990), and Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel's No Laughing Matter (1986). The three narratives differ from each other in the illness experienced, the relationship between the narrators, and the tone of the telling. The first narrates Rosenblum's struggle with advanced breast cancer, terminating in death, in alternation with her lesbian partner's journal entries, conveying her process of mourning as well as her resentment against the total subordination of her life to the needs of her dying partner. The second text is an AIDS story, told by Jerry Arterburn, the protagonist, and his brother Steve, with a foreword by their mother and a postscript by their father. It is a “conversion” story, relating Arterburn's renunciation of homosexuality, as a result of contracting AIDS, and his reaffiliation with his nuclear family. No Laughing Matter, the third book, is written by Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, and the friend who took care of him, Speed Vogel. Heller suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological autoimmune illness, from which he later recovered. He and the caregiver, who took over his autonomy, his apartment, and his checkbook, both write about the ... log in or subscribe to read full text