“Disability” can mean a whole lot of things: blindness, paralysis, amputated limbs, deafness, a chronic illness, brain damage. When I first started writing this blog, I thought it was a rare occurrence in romance novels. However, when I asked the staff here at AAR to brainstorm, we came up with a much longer list than I had anticipated.
In Virna DePaul’s upcoming book Shades of Desire, the heroine is coping with her recent loss of vision. Lily in Tessa Dare’s Three Nights With a Scoundrel is deaf, as are the heroines in Suzanne Brockman’s Into the Fire and Erin McCarthy’s Mouth To Mouth. The heroine in Jill Barnett’s Sentimental Journey is blind. When it comes to debilitating disabilities, Catherine Anderson deserves some serious praise for taking risks and writing about it: in Blue Skies, the heroine is formerly blind, and at risk for becoming blind again; in Phantom Waltz, the heroine is paralyzed; and perhaps the most challenging, My Sunshine, in which the heroine has brain damage, and Annie’s Song, in which the heroine is thought to be mentally handicapped but is in fact deaf.
Do you notice a theme? There aren’t too many men who are disabled in these romance novels. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part when a hero is disabled, it is limited to something relatively minor, in terms of affecting his ability to live independently. Some scarring, or a limp, perhaps, but nothing he can’t handle alone. Piers, in Eloisa James’ When Beauty Tamed the Beast, would be an example of this. When disabilities do show up, it’s the women who cannot be totally independent, who is wheelchair bound or blind or deaf.
Is this because we don’t want a hero who is physically imperfect? After all, the rate of stunningly attractive men with six-packs is much higher in Romancelandia than in real life. Is it that we doubt a real HEA when we know that the stress of having a disability, or caring for someone who does, can often strain relationships? Or does it stem from more deeply ingrained gender roles? Men are traditionally the breadwinners, the protectors, and to have a woman in that role still doesn’t feel quite right to some. Even now, are there are people who still think that a man incapable of providing for his partner in all ways is not truly a Man?
I don’t have an answer to that question, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
– Jane Granville
Wow! That’s [crazy|funny|wild|unbelievable]. Thanks for the post!
This is interesting reading, and inspiring. The book I’m working on currently has a secondary character (man) who is disabled. As I write, I can feel his story wanting to come out, so I guess I have my work cut out!
It isn’t just in My Darling Echo (Gayle Wilson) that the hero is handicapped. In many of her Regency books, the hero is handicapped in some way. In The Gambler’s Heart, the hero has lost an eye and is disfigured on one side of his face; in Anne Perfect Husband, the hero is frequently laid low because of the shrapnel that still affects his health; in Lady Sarah’s son, the hero has lost a foot in war; in The Heart’s Desire, the hero has a club foot and twisted leg.
I have a lot of sympathy for these characters not just because of the way they rise above their circumstances but also because as is true of many of us, their ailments are usually of the heart. They themselves can usually manage by accepting help (accepting help is hard for even the most mobile person); sometimes their limitation has to do with letting others know of their vulnerabilities. And often their liberation comes from believing in themselves (again, something we all have trouble doing from time to time).
I recently read the epic romance EDMUND PERSUADER. It’s daunting length, about 1,560 pages, discourages many but I rank it right up there with the best literature I have ever read. Getting to my point, the heroine’s best friend and companion is Evelyn Brownton, who manifests all of the classic symptoms of an autism spectrum disorder. She is physically beautiful which makes it even more difficult on her socially because she does not like to be touched without her permission, she is painfully shy, socially awkward in a sense, although when comfortable, candid and forthright to a fault. She has difficulty with literacy but is otherwise narrowly highly intuitive and perceptive as are many with an autism spectrum disorder. She is truly one of the more fascinating and wholly loveable heroines this reader has yet come across. I felt for her harrowing situation because people like her were in constant threat of being committed to the “”mad houses”” of that time period.
A favorite book of mine is This is all I ask by Lynn Kurland. The hero is blind, but manages to hide the fact from most of the world by hiding in his keep (it’s a medieval book) and creating for himself a fearsome reputation that keeps his enemies from challenging him. His people are aware, and help him enough that he even fools the heroine (his reluctant bride) for awhile.
The heroine is equally disabled because of the emotional and physical abuse of her father. She is terrified of her husband (actually she is terrified of everyone and everything) for the first half of the book, but as she begins to realize that she is safe, slowly she falls in love and makes friends. It’s a lovely book, with a believable HEA. I recommend it highly, and I think it got a DIK review on this site.
Have to mention an oldie but favorite – Morning Side of Dawn, by Justine Davis – hero is a double amputee. A very lovely story about seeing past surfaces to the person inside.
Ridley, I am sorry that my comment angered you.
How did you read my comment and come away with the idea you’d angered me?
Head in the game, kid. The book is what infuriated me, not you or anyone who liked it.
Although, every time someone recommends The Morning Side of Dawn as anything but a patronizing pile of crap, that might anger me a bit. Though I’m angrier at authors and society for making it seem like a story like that is a healthy representation of disability than with able bodied readers who don’t know any better liking the “”beauty and the beast”” theme. Everyone’s heart being in the right place doesn’t make that awful book any less offensive, though.
LOL! I curse myself for that mistake, Ridley. I’m glad you enjoyed the rest of it. We live and learn.
I have read Dancing with Clara. As I recall, I didn’t actually see it as a book about someone who was physically disabled, but had been disabled psychologically by another. I saw it as Clara learning to think and fend for herself. I wouldn’t put it in the same category as my own mistake with a blind heroine. Clara’s recovery was implicit, I thought, from the beginning. She was sickly, not crippled, wasn’t she?
Well, one of my favorite fictional male characters, Jaime Lannister of ASOIAF, is crippled. And he is a fascinating, complex and vibrant character. So, it’s all in the writing. Of course, he is not a romance novel character.
I remember one of Mary Balogh’s heroes was severely disabled – didn’t seem to hurt his popularity any with the readers.
I don’t think it is enough to make a list of books when we are talking about how people are represented in the genre. As Ridley’s post and the comments thread on Dear Author show when we meet characters with a disability we are also being shown a whole lot about how our societies work and the often unspoken perceptions that people bring to dealing with someone or something that they perceive as ‘other’.
An example is the picture that goes with this post. It is of a transport wheelchair, the sort that requires a carer to manouver. It isn’t the sort of chair that a person who requires that level of mobility assistance is likely to use in the everyday. As a picture is represents passiveness; implying and reinforcing a prevailing notion that people with disabilities have little agency. I think this is a serious issue in romance where a large part of the journey of the hero and heroine is towards a supportive relationship that enhances each others personal agency.
I highly recommend an excellent article that appeared on the Mary Sue girls and geekery blog about these issues http://www.themarysue.com/how-to-illustrate-wheelchairs/
I doubly endorse both of the books that Gail mentioned. In Jo Beverley’s Hazard, Anne is handicapped by a club foot, but really asserts herself against her family’s tendency to coddle her even before the hero comes along. Then there’s Dancing with Clara, which is also in essence, I think, a story of the heroine’s gradual empowerment. For mental handicaps, we should probably mention The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie.