Disability Visibility Project
Rooney is heralded as the voice of a generation and yet, Intermezzo feels deeply out of step with the expansive conversations and experiments of younger and elder Millennials, as well as Gen-Z, on sexuality, disability, queerness and non-monogamy in its many guises. I worry that the popularity of the novel, and the fact that the apparent ableism has gone largely unchallenged, will make the autistic Rain Man stereotype even harder to shift and that popular culture will continue to treat people with physical disabilities as sexless or de-sexed beings.
