Rachel Simon, author of the acclaimed memoir Riding the Bus with My Sister, has recently written the New York Times bestselling novel The Story of Beautiful Girl (Grand Central Publishing). The novel spans forty years in the lives of Linny, a woman with developmental disability, and Homan, a man who lost his hearing as a child. Through their stories, Simon also sketches the history of the institutionalization of individuals with both physical and intellectual disabilities and the shift away from that model, including the emphasis on group homes and self-advocacy.
As I was reading the book, I was impressed by how much I felt I was in Linny’s head. I assume that some of your ability to write from the perspective of a person with an intellectual disability comes from knowing your sister Beth. Did you need to research this aspect of the novel? Was it difficult to write?
It’s embarrassing to say this: It was easy. And I don’t know if that is because Linny is so real and spoke through me, or if it was from knowing Beth and from all the public speaking I’ve been doing. Riding the Bus came out in 2002, and I’m still traveling with that. People are very forthcoming with me because of the openness in that book: they share their stories.
Beth has funny logic. I’ll give you an example. When the movie for Riding the Bus got made, Hallmark sent it to us a few weeks early. We brought it to a bus driver’s house and sat down and watched it with him and his family. And after we watched it, Beth had various reactions to how it deviated from the real story. We said to her, “Well, how do you feel about a famous actress like Rosie O’Donnell playing you in a movie?” And Beth said, “It’s all right, but I’m not going to play her in a movie.” That’s her logic. So Linny’s logic made complete sense to me. She thinks, “Kate prays. Can I pray? Well, Kate knows God’s name, but I don’t know God’s name, so I can’t pray.”
Both Linny and Homan are characters with spiritual questions. They are interested in God, they are thinking about God, but they have no way to pose those questions. I’m curious what you think that faith communities could do to better include people with both physical and intellectual disabilities into their communities, to make those questions and moments of possibility more accessible.
There are people spending their careers on that question! Making spaces universally accessible is a good start. But it requires a lot of extra thought to create something that works with people with intellectual differences. It’s one thing to say, okay, we can do the ramp and we can do the rail. But how do you work with somebody who processes information differently?
Wiser minds than mine have put a lot of thought into that. What I can say is that I’m a very big believer in one-on-one education and communication. For eleven years, I taught creative writing. You know that writing tends to be taught workshop style, but I did not teach that way. We would talk in a group about writing craft and process, but I worked with students one-on-one, both for their privacy and also so I could push them in the way each individual could be pushed. I think in spiritual matters that is very key. It is such an individual experience for all of us, and it changes over time. So someone in a faith community could become a spiritual friend of a person with disabilities and make themselves available, in a non-judgmental manner, for these kind of conversations in whatever way that person communicates.
Although many reviewers characterize Beautiful Girl as a sad book, I found it quite hopeful, especially in tracing the historical changes in attitudes toward and experiences of people with disabilities. Do you think of the novel as hopeful? Do you share that hopefulness for individuals with intellectual disabilities in the United States?
My theory about the reviewers who are calling my book sad is that at least some of them haven’t read it all the way to the end. If they had, I think, they would have seen that the story I’m writing—which overlaps with the story of how things have changed for people with developmental disabilities over the last half century—is a story of independence, freedom, choice, hope, friendship, loyalty, connection, and love. The conditions at the beginning of the book are sad, but the characters remain hopeful, and, though I don’t want to reveal here exactly how the story works out, their hope ultimately prevails.
I do feel hopeful about how things are going in our society. There are fewer institutions, and in every facet of life there is a lot more inclusion. That has helped public attitudes as well. That said, we still have a long way to go. I remain shocked by how many people casually use the r-word, or form hateful, violent groups on Facebook and such. I also remain shocked that we could even be talking about cutting financial supports that give people with disabilities the opportunity to live in the community. And I worry that the combination of these cruel attitudes and frugal public spending will set us back.
But I’m doing all I can to fight against that. And I have a feeling that your readers are fighting along right beside me. As long as we don’t give up, our hope, too, will ultimately prevail.
Amy Julia Becker is the author most recently of A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny, just published by Bethany House.
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