
Critical Narratives of Recovery
Rejecting Repair, Restoration and Resolution
Avril Tynan(Author)
Edinburgh University Press
Will be published approx. on 31. December 2026
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-3995-6163-1 (ISBN)
Description
Recovery narratives may appear to be uniform, charting an inspirational arc from tragedy to triumph. Critical Narratives of Recovery, however, explores narratives of recovery that challenge and critique the conventions of closure and catharsis. Distinguishing narratives of illness from narratives of recovery, the latter detailing a protracted period of time after illness, this book contests the telos of the hegemonic recovery narrative. Drawing on both memoirs and scholarship that acknowledge the ambiguous and incomplete nature of recovery, the analysis counterbalances influential approaches towards narrative as reparative and even curative. Recovery, it is argued, does not mark the conclusion of a well-told tale but invites the question, 'what now?' The first book-length critique of narratives of recovery, this study analyses a range of twenty-first-century anglophone memoirs in print and other media, including film and graphic narratives, to argue that, while recovery may well be possible, it is not necessarily complete, nor restorative, nor even good.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
5 black & white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-6163-1 (9781399561631)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Avril Tynan is an Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku. She has previously held research fellowships at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI) and the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, as well as teaching positions at Royal Holloway, University of London. She co-edited Trauma, Ethics, Hermeneutics: Essays in Honour of Colin Davis (with Professor Helena Duffy, 2024) and is co-editor of Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies.
Author
Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Comparative LiteratureUniversity of Turku
Content
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
1. After Illness
2. Narratives of Illness, Narratives of Recovery: Features, Forms and Functions
3. More Than Twelve Steps in Literature and Film: Amy Liptrot's The Outrun (2015) and 'The Outrun' (2024)
4. Beginning Again: Writing Eating Disorder Recovery in Emma Woolf's An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia (2012)
5. No Going Back: Suleika Jaouad's Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted (2021)
6. Disability Narrative as Recovery Narrative: Graphic Medicine and Crip Time in Vivian Chong and Georgia Webber's Dancing After Ten (2020)
7. Recovery-to-Come: Billy-Ray Belcourt's Utopia in A History of My Brief Body (2020)
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
1. After Illness
2. Narratives of Illness, Narratives of Recovery: Features, Forms and Functions
3. More Than Twelve Steps in Literature and Film: Amy Liptrot's The Outrun (2015) and 'The Outrun' (2024)
4. Beginning Again: Writing Eating Disorder Recovery in Emma Woolf's An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia (2012)
5. No Going Back: Suleika Jaouad's Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted (2021)
6. Disability Narrative as Recovery Narrative: Graphic Medicine and Crip Time in Vivian Chong and Georgia Webber's Dancing After Ten (2020)
7. Recovery-to-Come: Billy-Ray Belcourt's Utopia in A History of My Brief Body (2020)
Bibliography
Index