In her new hybrid memoir, Amy Lee Lillard starts out slowly, advising the reader that A Grotesque Animal (University of Iowa Press) is about a middle-aged woman coming into her own following her late-in-life autism diagnosis. That is the premise, it’s true, but it is not a fair synopsis of this book.
The early sections focus on the daily facts (not yet recognized as traumas) of living with undiagnosed autism — masking, for example, is given its own (sort of) chapter at the beginning, set up like dictionary entries, each one a new version of what it means to hide and why we do it. (“Masking” is the term used to describe how neurodivergent people cope in an allistic world by disguising or hiding the symptoms of their difference.) The introduction sets us up to expect complicated narration, but this is where the storytelling begins to take shape.
There are sections that use lyrics to bring the topic back home, as the lens through which Lillard views her own life. Sometimes the chapters are self-contained braided essays, other times they’re in second person. My favorite section describes a series of paintings which illustrate the queer body and its implications. At one point she tells a story, states that the story is fiction, and gives the reader footnotes to assist with reading through her words to the true story that inspired the one she presents.
Lillard uses every literary tool she has to shape a narrative from multiple modes, perspectives and forms. And in her work, she presents a coming-of-age tale relatable to those of us who always tried to fit somewhere and so could never find ourselves, who were always trying to get to that quiet place. In her willingness to display her own wounds, she opened a door for others like her.
“…[T]he disabled were Lebensunwertes Leben — life unworthy of life,” she writes, reflecting on the first victims of the Nazis and how disabled people — her would-be ancestors — have been treated in the U.S. until very recently. “Of all the words you’ve found over the years to capture a feeling and a way of being — queer, bisexual, child-free, weird — autistic feels the most revolutionary.”
Lillard’s story is about unmasking, yes, unlearning all the things she was taught before she was diagnosed autistic, but it’s also a story of not fitting in with one’s own family, of being poor and vulnerable, of abuse, and queerness, and art, and all the ways we try to bend ourselves to make life easier. Most importantly, it can be a guide on how to unbend, forgive ourselves and come into our own.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2024 issue.
