Sight Loss and the Tethered Self in 21st Century Novels

Here's the abstract:

This book explores the representation of visual impairment in 21st century novels. It arises from new research within the growing field of blind studies, engaging with the scholarship of David Bolt, Julia Miele Rodas, Devon Healey and Heather Tilley, among others. Multiple definitions of ‘tethering’ are used to describe relationships between disabled and non-disabled protagonists. In the texts considered here, blind or partially sighted characters encounter discriminatory (ocularcentric) attitudes; equally, they are situated within profound friendships and experience romantic love. The paradoxical ‘tether trope’ can signify a restraining cord or a guided running tool: it may describe a process of disempowerment or a liberating form of connectivity. After a contextualising Introduction (incorporating discussions of Joseph Conrad’s The End of the Tether and Wilkie Collins’ The Dead Secret and Poor Miss Finch), each chapter focuses on a particular literary genre: namely, biofiction, romance and historical fiction. These chapters consider nuanced and complex representations of vision loss (and, more briefly, hearing loss) in contemporary novels by David Lodge, Julian Barnes, Shrabani Basu, Eric Lindstrom, Lucy May Lennox and Anthony Doerr. This study is informed experientially by the author’s own severe visual impairment.

The chapter on romance is titled "Blind Love and the Will to Run in Romance Fiction by Eric Lindstrom and Lucy May Lennox". I have included a direct link to this chapter, which can be found on pages 55–87. Here's the abstract for the chapter:

This chapter explores blindness and deaf-blindness in the context of romance fiction, focusing on Love in Touch by Lucy May Lemmox [sic] (2013) and Not If I See You First: a young adult novel by Eric Lindstrom (2015). The former explores the developing relationship between Kassie (the narrator) and Jake, who has been both blind and deaf from birth. Lindstrom’s novel portrays the experiences of a feisty and courageous teenager who refuses to be defined by her blindness. Both novelists evoke the daily struggles arising from sense impairment, while also signalling fleeting moments of triumph and self-discovery. Equally, they challenge common assumptions about attraction, presenting blind characters as intensely desirable. This study considers social performance; the effect of discriminatory behaviour; friendship, love and the role of carers; the transformative power of assistive technology; the primacy of touch; and the liberation achieved through tethered or untethered running.

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Not If I See You First (2015) by Eric Lindstrom and Love in Touch (2013; 2nd edition 2018) by Lucy May Lennox are twenty-first-century American novels with blind protagonists. The former (hereafter Not If) is narrated by 16-year-old Parker Grant, whose optic nerves have been severed in a car accident, resulting in total blindness. The accident has also caused the death of Parker’s mother, who was driving when inebriated. Having possessed excellent vision up to the age of seven, Parker has faced an abrupt transition, grappling with the aftermath of her mother’s demise alongside the loss of her eyesight. Three months before the events of the novel begin, Parker has discovered her father dead at their home from an overdose, suggesting the probability of suicide over accidental causes. Kassie Bloch, the (sighted) protagonist of Love in Touch is also grieving the death of her father, which has occurred during her college years. However, the discussion of this novel will focus primarily on Jake O’Malley—the 26-year-old man with whom she becomes romantically involved. He has been both deaf and blind from birth, due to his mother contracting rubella during pregnancy. While Kassie is fully independent, Jake’s domestic situation more closely resembles Parker’s, in that he is cared for by adults, despite being ten years her senior. While Parker is still an adolescent studying at high school and living with her aunt, uncle and cousins, Jake is an unemployed man, entirely dependent on his parents, principally due to the severity of his disability.

Both texts inhabit the Romance genre, with Not If explicitly designated as a Young Adult (Y.A.) novel. (56)