Written by Fiona J. Mackintosh
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Today I am delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Ancestral Virgins with a guest post from the author, Fiona J. Mackintosh, on creating a character with a disability and ensuring that character is acurately portrayed in the story by taking advice from a sensitivity reader with first-hand experience of that disability.
This tour is organised by Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources.
The blurb:
Ancestral VirginsIn early 20th century Britain, society was changing rapidly, but not much was changing for women. From different ends of the social spectrum, Celia Mapperley and May Hallam wrestle with rules and circumstances beyond their control and must navigate love, sex, war, and the thin line between conformity and scandal. As they each bear the shame of a devastating family secret, their stories come together in ways that neither could have imagined.
Through Another’s Eyes
Creating a character with a disability can be a perilous process in the 21st century. If not done well and accurately, the writer can be criticized for not only getting it wrong but for appropriating the experience of real live people who live with the same disability. And this is absolutely as it should be. Modern readers expect that any writer who invents such a character should not only take an abundance of care to get the details right but also to find an appropriate “sensitivity reader” to go through the novel and give her feedback.
My recently published historical novel Ancestral Virgins focuses on two very different brother-sister relationships in early 20th Britain. Celia Mapperley and her brother Makepeace are the children of the Earl of Sherwood and live a Downton Abbey style of life in London and at their family estate in Nottinghamshire. The novel contrasts their lives with those of May and Davey Hallam, whose family live and work on the estate. May is the youngest of the six siblings but is especially close to her brother Davey, who was born with “mongolism” or what we now call Down’s Syndrome.
“There had never been a time in her life when Davey hadn’t been there. She thought she could remember the full moon of his face peering over the edge of her baby basket, and his hand reaching for hers across Mam’s lap as each straddled a knee. He was her other half, her older twin.”
The relationship between May and Davey is loving and close, but from her earliest days, May is made to feel like it is her responsibility to protect him, which at times feels too heavy a load for a young girl to bear.
“It wasn’t fair, she, the youngest of them all, but they expected so much of her, to take care of everything, no, not everything, just Davey, who couldn’t be left, couldn’t be trusted, not his fault but oh the weight of it. May felt that weight in her chest, the unfairness when she was the youngest, the smallest, the point of a triangle turned upside down.”
I created the character of Davey because I was interested in exploring society’s attitudes to disability a century ago. In the early 20th century, the prevailing consensus among experts and politicians was that “mental deficiency” often led to crime and vagrancy and that such people should be segregated from the general population to maintain social order. Davey is fortunate to be part of a loving family who have no desire to put him in an institution, but May has to work hard to shield him from the bullying and ignorance that exists in the wider world.
In creating the relationship between May and Davey, I had in mind the moving friendship between Nicholas and the “feeble-minded” boy Smike in Charles Dickens’ novel Nicholas Nickleby. I don’t suppose Dickens ever employed a sensitivity reader, but times have changed. Having never personally known anyone with Down’s, I decided that was how I must proceed.
Through the Editorial Freelancers’ Association in the US, I advertised for someone with experience in sensitivity reading for disability and with close personal experience of having or living with someone with Down’s. Most replies were boilerplate responses that did not address my particular needs at all (note to those editors: don’t do that – it wastes your time as well as mine). But among the no-hopers, I discovered an enthusiastic email from a young woman whose younger brother has Down’s, and I snapped her up at once.
Having anxiously awaited her verdict, you can imagine my relief when she came back to me with a couple of helpful suggestions but otherwise giving me two thumbs up. Phew! Without her careful reading, I wouldn’t have felt as confident that I’d succeeded in making Davey a fully rounded and engaging character.
Some writers dismiss the idea of sensitivity readers as pandering to the heightened sensibilities of the modern age. But why wouldn’t I want to ensure that I reflect and honor the lived experience of someone wholly different from myself? It’s a courtesy, yes, but it also makes for a better, more multifaceted and truthful experience for the reader. And I say Amen to that.
| Author Bio – Fiona J. Mackintosh |
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| Fiona J. Mackintosh is a Scottish-American author living in Washington D.C. whose fiction draws from both sides of the Atlantic. Her flash fiction collection, The Yet Unknowing World (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2021), was a runner-up for the 2021 Saboteur Award for best short story collection, and her debut novel Ancestral Virgins will be published on June 26, 2026. Her flashes were selected for Best Small Fictions in 2023 and 2019, and her short stories have been finalists in the Cairde Word, Colm Toíbín, Bristol, Galley Beggar, Exeter, and Fish Short Story Prizes. She is a proud recipient of an Individual Artist’s Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. www.fionajmackintosh.com |
| Social Media Links – | |
| Web site | https://fionajmackintosh.com/ |
| Instagram fionajanemack | |
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| Facebook Author Page | fiona.j.mackintosh |
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| Linktree | Fiona J Mackintosh |
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