The Invading Body: Reading Illness Autobiographies

205 Pages·2007·7.586 MB·English

by  Einat Avrahami

THE INVADING BODY

THE INVADING BODY
Reading Illness Autobiographies
El NAT AVRAHAMI
University of Virginia Press
Charlottesville and London
University of Virginia Press
© 2007 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First published 2007
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG ING-IN - PU BLICATION DATA
Avrahami, Einat, 1963—
The invading body: reading illness autobiographies / Einat Avrahami.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8139-2664-3 (cloth: alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-8139-2665-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Terminally ill—Psychology. 2. Terminally ill—Biography. 3. Critically ill—Psychology.
4. Critically ill—Biography. I. Title.
R726.8.A97 2007
6io.73'6—dc22
2007010403
FOR TOMER, WITH LOVE

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: How the “I” Handles Finiteness 1
1 Illness as Life Affair in GillianR ose’s Love's Work 21
2 First You Hurt 40
3 Confessing AIDS 73
4 Flesh-Tinted Frames 97
5 Hannah Wilke: Performing Grief 129
Conclusion 157
Notes 165
Works Cited 179
Index 189

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work would not have been carried out without the unwavering sup­
port of my husband, Tomer Ben Efraim, who helped me in multiple ways,
ranging from hunting for illness photographs in downtown Manhattan
galleries and looking up reviews of illness memoirs, to taking care of our
two children on numerous school vacations and boosting my confidence
in moments of despair. I was fortunate to have wise and attentive readers
during all the stages of writing this book and to engage in conversa­
tions that helped me improve the manuscript. I am very grateful to Ellen
Spolsky for her illuminating and sensitive guidance during my early
stages of thinking and writing at the University of Bar-Ilan. Special thanks
are due to Elana Gomel, Shlomit Rimmon-Kenan, Rachel Salmon, Mil-
lette Shamir, and Hana Wirth-Nesher—as well as to the two readers for
the University of Virginia Press, one anonymous and the other Ross Cham­
bers—for their generous and perceptive comments on the manuscript.
An honorary salute goes to Irma Klein and Edna Rosenthal for their en­
couragement along the way. I thank Cathie Brettschneider, my editor at
the University of Virginia Press, and Beth Ina, freelance copyeditor, for
their support and conscientiousness. I’m indebted to James Phelan and
Rita Charon for publishing chapters 1 and 3, respectively, in Narrative
and Literature and Medicine, and for the permission to reprint. Gracious
permissions to reproduce photographic images, as well as much-needed