Ren Cedar Fuller's perceptive debut work, Bigger, offers nine linked autobiographical essays in which she seeks to see herself and family members more clearly by acknowledging disability, neurodivergence, and gender diversity.
In "Naming My Father," Fuller theorizes that her late father was "on the autism spectrum." He was exacting and emotionless--he spouted facts but never expressed love; he hit his four daughters and couldn't tell them apart unless they stood in height order. She intersperses notable moments from her father's past with key developments in the timeline of autism research. Sharing information was how her father connected with her, she recognized. "He wanted my world to be bigger, which is what we want for those we love."
Such expansiveness was an unexpected result of Fuller's child, Indigo, coming out as transgender and nonbinary. Her husband built Indigo a replica of the time-and-space-travel machine from Doctor Who one Christmas. The TARDIS--larger inside than outside--becomes a striking symbol of gender's breadth. Looking back, Fuller realizes that two of her sisters and their mother, who was raised in Ecuador by Scandinavian missionaries, are also gender-nonconforming.
Fuller is whimsical and self-deprecating as she details her health issues--a lazy eye and Sjögren's syndrome. Several pieces have novel structures: a checklist; a set of statements interrogated in subsequent indented paragraphs; and a faux scientific paper that traces the effects of colonialism and language loss on her mother from childhood through to her present-day dementia.
This openhearted memoir models how to explore and integrate with one's family history. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck