Despite a devoted cult following and high praise from a handful of reviewers, Donald Harington has received scant attention in the academic literature. Harington (1935-2009) published 14 novels, most of them centered around the fictional Ozark hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas. Because he wrote mostly about a single town and because his novels contain a folkloric magical realism, he has often been compared to William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but his works defy easy classification. This report argues that Harington’s novel Farther Along is a recovery narrative structurally and thematically congruent with the recovery narratives told at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The storyteller establishes his “qualifications” as an addictive drinker and depicts alcoholism as a symptom of underlying problems manifested not only in drinking but also in self-pity and resentment. The drinker reaches a crisis, or bottom, and begins to recover after going to meetings and hearing someone else’s autobiographical story that reveals truths about the nature of addiction. Continued attendance at meetings, during which one identifies with the stories of others, ends alcoholic isolation. Help from some type of higher power becomes crucial to achieving sobriety. And recovery includes service to others as a safeguard against the return of self-pity. However, in Farther Along it is not AA’s twelve-step program that leads the protagonist to sobriety. Instead, it is storytelling in itself – fiction – that functions as the “program” of recovery. More particularly, Harington, himself an alcoholic who remained sober for more than two decades, found an alternative to AA in his bizarre brand of magical realism. Thus, the novel is a testament to the healing power of stories. / text

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-82).

This study sought to hear the narratives of individuals that have recovered from self-harming, with the intention of bearing witness to both the narratives and remaining scars in order to better understand and inform clinical practice. A purposive sample of seven individuals was recruited. Participants were asked to photograph their scars and bring them to an interview. Narratives were generated and explored through a relatively unstructured individual interview. Both the images and narratives were analysed using a narrative approach exploring content, performance and structural aspects, emphasising researcher reflexivity throughout. Findings were understood through psychoanalytic theory and highlighted a theme of validation and ‘being seen’, evidenced in stories of past invalidation that had been internalised into the self-structure and defended against by presenting a ‘defended’ self. Self-harm enabled this ‘unseen self’ to be expressed, validated and contained. Recovery was storied in terms of internalising experiences of validation, which enabled integration of the invalidated parts of the self. Many of the participants highlighted how their scars told a story of discovery; of becoming, coping and surviving. In the healing of scars this recovery is evident, but they may also continue to convey the unseen and unspoken experiences of pain, incoherence and invalidation. Self-harm and remaining scars may be understood as connecting, containing and re-embodying the internalised invalidation and ‘unseen’ aspects of the self. These findings are discussed with reference to the clinical implications, strengths and limitations of the methodology and directions for future research.