Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the process and challenges of writing a grief narrative. It looks at a new phenomenon: the memoirs of infertile women who became mothers by surrogacy. The book explores the different ways in which these personal narratives sit at the intersection of personal trauma, pathography, matriography, and biography, providing fresh insights into concepts of health, motherhood, class, and colonialism. It considers narratives of health, illness, and disability as well as the emotional labor with which they both are told and are listened to. The book analyzes a selection of memoirs by women with different ethnic backgrounds in the United States to demonstrate how women with mental health issues use the genre to negotiate the liminal state in which they find themselves due to the social construction of disability, gender, and race.