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Why disabled book reviewers are urgently needed to add nuance to review sections
The arena of book review pages is noticeably devoid of disabled voices and perspectives—to the detriment of readers and publications alike.
When I reviewed disabled Guardian columnist Dr Frances Ryan’s vital book Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People, I was conscious I was one of very few disabled critics being paid to do so. I was conscious, too, that I was reviewing it for SICK, a small publication by and about disabled people, and not for a major newspaper or magazine. “When I did know of a disabled critic [reviewing Crippled]”, Ryan tells me, “it was in an independent or disability publication.”
This demonstrates a long-standing injustice in the book world, where a key group of gatekeepers remains almost 100% non-disabled: professional book reviewers. “I was lucky I got very favourable reviews in the mainstream press,” Ryan says. “But the reviews that were written by disabled critics produced a particularly deep understanding. You can always tell when a reviewer has first-hand knowledge.”
If mainstream editors engage with the idea of employing disabled critics at all, they often claim there aren’t any disabled critics to employ. The logic is circular and self-fulfilling: editors at major publications don’t employ disabled book reviewers, so there are no disabled book reviewers working at major publications. This practice then becomes evidence that there are no disabled book reviewers capable of working at major publications.
A crucial further step towards fair representation would see disabled journalists appointed as editors of book sections
But to see the vast reservoir of disabled talent in book reviewing, we need only look online. The internet enables many disabled people to review books for their own blogs or newsletters, or on websites such as Goodreads and Amazon. But it does not enable them to earn money for their work or guarantee them large audiences.
Disabled book reviewers do not face the same physical obstacles encountered by disabled critics in other areas of the arts. They do not need to travel or battle inaccessible venues. They do not even need to leave their homes. Particularly if we include audiobooks, books are the most accessible works that any publication can review—and so there are few excuses for not assigning a proportionate amount of those reviews to disabled critics.
The editors of book sections can start to address this issue today, by proactively commissioning disabled reviewers. Around 15%–20% of the population is disabled and, consequently, around 15%–20% of all book reviews published in major publications should be by disabled critics. A crucial further step towards fair representation would see disabled journalists appointed as editors of book sections, so they can actually share in editorial decisions. While it’s key that disabled reviewers are frequently assigned to review books that deal with disability, so that they can give their expert insight into them, it’s important that disabled reviewers are not solely commissioned to review books about disability, so that disabled critics are not ghettoised and confined to just discussing disability issues.
Only when these measures are implemented industry-wide can disabled people begin to have what we have always been denied: fair and proportionate participation in the professional writing and reviewing of books.
