Memory Work and Dirty Work
Writing the Labor of Eldercare
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4270993 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susan Fraiman (0000-0002-1833-125X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 989-1011 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Literary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0028-6087 • E-ISSN: 1080-661X |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/nlh.2023.a907156 |
| OpenAlex | W4386890753 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Memory Work and Dirty Work: Writing the Labor of Eldercare" identifies the US eldercare memoir as a burgeoning subgenre of life writing. Typically written by daughters about nursing their parents at the end of life, these memoirs-searing accounts of care for declining bodies-make eldercare visible as a major category of unpaid feminized work. Most home care aides in the US are also women, many of them Black and/or immigrants, performing this important job for meager wages. Eldercare memoirs are thus substantially concerned with the nature and devaluation of a particular form of labor. Dramatizing its feminization, they lead me to pursue a further question: to what extent are female aides and their unequal, quasi-familial relationships with daughters given space in these narratives? Texts treated in detail include Sue Miller's The Story of My Father (2003) and Ruth Tosic's I Am Not the Girl: Memoirs of a Certified Nursing Assistant (2021
Art · Care work · Devaluation · Developmental psychology · Economics · Girl · Life writing · Literature · Memoir · Miller · Narrative · Sociology · Work (physics) · Gender Studies · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |