Reviewed by Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri
“For those of us who walk with the dragon of mental illness at our sides, The Monster and the Mirror illuminates the path.”
~Carrie Mac, author of Last Winter (attribution from ECW website)
The Monster and the Mirror was first conceived as a series of “…essays critiqu[ing]…literature and otherness” (p. xi) with somewhat of an academic slant. The manuscript morphed because the author realized there is “…power in the analytical, sure, but far more power in human experience—in my own experience. After all, haven’t these stories predominantly been written about us, but not by us?” (p. xi). She thus revised the manuscript intermingling personal narrative with pop culture references familiar to many. Aiello notes, “When I embarked on the journey of writing this book, I didn’t think it would include so much me” (p. xi).
The book consists of a brief introduction (detailing how the book came to be) followed by eight chapters: “The Monster and the Mirror”; “The Druid and His Daughter”; “What Is Evil? And Other Othering Questions”; “The Ghosts of These Empty Halls”; “Magical Rings, Rain, and Fireflies”; “A World to Fall Into”; “Am I Brave Enough?”; and “A Dragon of One’s Own.” It ends with a list of references for each chapter and acknowledgements.
Each chapter juxtaposes snippets of Aiello’s life with cultural analysis as someone who adores the fantasy genre and has lived with mental illness. Denoted by a change in fonts and formatting, this back and forth serves as a mechanism to recount her life—including troublesome and traumatic aspects—while interpreting and analyzing cultural representations. This format serves as a mirror (perhaps the mirror in the title?) critiquing how representations of disability, mental illness, and real-life experiences are both nuanced and problematic, as she debunks dichotomies including good vs. bad, strong vs. weak, and mad vs. sane.
The ways in which Aiello “us[es] [her] own story as a medium through which other fantastical stories can be told might just be [her] magical superpower” (p. xi). She is equal parts defiant and loving in response to literary and cultural tropes around mental illness. Aiello may criticize stories or characters, but, for the most part, she also treasures them. She hasn’t necessarily recounted her stories verbatim nor sequentially: “Like any memoir…this is not a complete life retelling but simply moments in a life that feel most relevant to what I’m trying to say” (p. xi). Many of Aiello’s memories seem like ghosts, lost in time, or she didn’t want to relive them. Others resurfaced unexpectedly during therapy or when she was institutionalized in psychiatric facilities.
Aiello has recognized a better power, a better way—to counter stories that are about characters with mental illness with those written and conceived by people with mental illness.
As early as elementary school, Aiello felt different, monstrous. Fantastical beings became somehow lifelike to her, whispering in her ears, sometimes the Shadow, sometimes the Sorcerer. These phantoms appeared as her family environment failed her or existed as extensions of her own floundering mental health. I interpreted these less than concrete manifestations as coping mechanisms of some kind, which amplified her self-doubts and fed into her insecurity. Aiello dealt with a tenuous and toxic upbringing; she also experienced confusion as to why she was constantly so angry.
The autobiographical journal entries and passages are written with a brutal honesty, springing forth after asking important rhetorical questions, such as: why “[w]as it that someone like me, someone mentally ill, would always be cast as a villain?” (p. x) and “…that someone like me could be the hero, not despite or because of my mental illness, but simply, as I am?” (p. x). Aiello’s life has been difficult; she admits that writing certain segments was not easy, and tells the reader to beware:
Given the subject matter of this book, there are some sections that may be difficult for some readers…. Take a breath. Read slowly. Be kind to yourself. These are lessons I’ve also learned along the way (p. xii).
Aiello also warns the reader that she uses ableist and controversial terminology, but does so intentionally. The language and attitudes many marginalized people face in real life are prolific and unfortunate. She felt she couldn’t accurately recount her candid experiences without including this language. From the start, I felt almost like I was there, with Aiello, wherever and whenever she wrote from, what she endured, and whatever material she deconstructed. Reading this memoir flipped a switch inside me and had me reliving my own experiences, ones I might need to reexamine. The prose is magical and entrancing while sharing poignant, devastating moments.
Aiello consulted medical, literary, and psychological sources alongside her experiences to criticize (and at times venerate) popular genres—fantasy and horror primarily among them. She tapped into Greek mythology (where monsters are created to teach a lesson), analyzed medical literature (especially the DSM-5), appreciated the creativity inherent in Role Playing Games (RPGs) like Dungeons and Dragons (an environment “where mistakes could never be made because the game could always be reset” [p. 47]), expressed a love-hate relationship in response to plot points of the fantasy TV series The Game of Thrones (her favorite character is a powerful woman who gains agency through the show, but ultimately breaks, falling into the mentally ill-violent-villainess trope that plagues her bloodline), and identified with the X-Men character Jean Grey as represented in the Fox Studios film, Dark Phoenix (Grey is a powerful mutant whom others try to control without the character’s consent). There are many more examples. I am certainly not ignorant of how the media consistently misrepresents disability and mental illness; I am familiar with nearly every example Aiello uses. I appreciated how she used these sources to demonstrate how this material shapes public perceptions and how people who are mentally ill are treated as a result. Don’t hate the monster (literal or figurative); maybe the monster has more going on than meets the proverbial eye.
The book ends where Aiello begins, recounting how she wanted to “write seriously” (p. 238), long before The Monster and the Mirror came to fruition. Aiello describes how, as she arrived at this point (wanting to become a “real ”writer), she pulled together parts of a “new self” into a whole person (p. 238) and eagerly anticipated the stories she’d write, including this book. There are several essays, commentary, op-eds, and reviews about mental illness and other experiences of her life posted on her website (https://www.kjaiello.ca/). She’s shared what I perceive to be an important perspective. As Aiello demonstrates, in telling and owning our stories, whether or not we are mentally ill, we gain power.
Title: The Monster and the Mirror: Mental Illness, Magic, and the Stories We Tell
Editor: K. J. Aiello
Publisher: ECW Press
Date: 2024
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About the Reviewer
Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs) is a long-time employee at Syracuse University. She co-created (with Diane R. Wiener) “Cripping” the Comic Con, the first of its kind interdisciplinary and international symposium on disability and popular culture, previously held at SU. At conferences and as a guest lecturer for many years, Rachael has presented on the X-Men comic books, popular culture, and disability rights and identities from her perspective as a Neurodivergent person and as a Mad Queer Crip. Entries in their “Micro Mutant Postcard Project” have been published in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature and Stone of Madness. Their most recent publications include two articles (co-authored with Diane R. Wiener) in the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies‘ Special Issue, “Cripping Graphic Medicine I: Negotiating Empathy and the Lived Experiences of Disability in and through Comics” (Volume 17, Issue 3).