Personal assistance services — hands-on help provided to support daily living — is an experience very familiar to disabled people, as well as to people who are elderly, ill, or recovering from injury. Yet it rarely shows up in literature.
When it does, it can offer fascinating insights into the dynamics involved in the exchange of what’s often called “care” or “caregiving.” A couple of years ago, I wrote an article analyzing two writers of creative nonfiction, Nancy Mairs and Paul Monette, who wrote about giving and receiving personal assistance to a loved one. That article has just been published in the online literary journal The Sylvan Echo. You can read it here.
I’m always interested in reading (and writing) literary descriptions of personal assistance. Let me know if you find other good examples.
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