Dashing off a Diagnosis: Diagnostic Reading in Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss

Abstract

Sorrow and Bliss (2020) concerns one woman’s experiences of mental illness, from adolescence into adulthood, and the unraveling of her marriage, culminating in receiving the diagnosis of “– –.” This “diagnosis novel” treats the moment of disclosure as transformative, but it is withheld from the reader. In this essay, I argue that this omission creates a certain kind of reading which seeks to unlock the mystery. Ultimately, however, the novel ends without explanation, aside from a paratext explaining that it is no real illness. I argue that the multiple levels of diagnostic disclosure and disillusionment challenge us to reconsider and reassess our assumptions about the power of diagnosis. This essay offers an opportunity to reflect on our complicit impulse to pathologize and categorize individuals.