Abstract
Popular genres are often confined by their modes of production and the expectations of their readers. Close readings of the memoirs of Paralympic athlete Janet Gray, operatic tenor and Paralympian Ronan Tynan, and equestrian Doreen Reihill place these texts within traditions of athletic autobiography and journalistic accounts of the exceptional individual. Because such texts are often produced with the assistance of professional editors or ghostwriters, the issue of collaborative or assisted texts is also discussed. Lastly, an examination of oral histories solicited by service-providers and testimonies given before residential institution investigatory committees raise different, if related, questions regarding the impact of generic restraints and audiences, anticipated or actual, on the narrative of a life.
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Grubgeld, E. (2020). Disability and Constrained Genres: The Sports and Celebrity Narrative and the Limits of Oral History. In: Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland. Literary Disability Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37246-0_5
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