Abstract

In this chapter, I investigate recurrent themes and tropes in the ‘Down Syndrome novel’ and explore how they privilege mother/child relations to the exclusion of broader, more inclusive representations of Down syndrome. Significant narrative presence requires active agency by the characters, sophisticated representation of identity, and/or a primary narrative voice, but the Down Syndrome novel relies on Down syndrome being presented as an issue or trauma, generally experienced by the mother, and not the life of the disabled character themselves.