The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The top half is black, with white text. The bottom half is light blue, with art. The text, from top to bottom, reads:
A quote “Emma Grove has written a beautiful, vulnerable, exquisite book that offers an uncommonly clear look at a mind coming to know itself”- Torrey Peters, ‘Detransition, Baby’”. The quote is in small white. The quoter’s name and book are in slightly larger blue caps.
The title “The Third Person” in large, white caps.
The author’s name “Emma Grove” in smaller white caps.
Art in the blue half shows two people in a room. There is a door and two windows on a far wall. A man is half poking out from the lower right corner of the book, looking at a woman on the left side. Both figures are completely white. The woman projects two shadows onto the wall with the door. One shadow is feminine and one is masculine. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Child Abuse
• Physical Abuse
• Transphobia
• Suicidal Thoughts
• Deadnaming
• Bullying

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Summary:

In the winter of 2004, a shy woman named Emma sits in Toby’s office. She wants to share this wonderful new book she’s reading, but Toby, her therapist, is concerned with other things. Emma is transgender, and has sought out Toby for approval for hormone replacement therapy. Emma has shown up at the therapy sessions as an outgoing, confident young woman named Katina, and a depressed, submissive workaholic named Ed. She has little or no memory of her actions when presenting as these other two people. And then Toby asks about her childhood . . .

As the story unfolds, we discover clues to Emma’s troubled past and how and why these other two people may have come into existence. As Toby juggles treating three separate people, each with their own unique personalities and memories, he begins to wonder if Emma is merely acting out to get attention, or if she actually has Dissociative Identity Disorder. Is she just a troubled woman in need of help? And is “the third person” in her brain protecting her, or derailing her chances of ever finding peace?

The Third Person is a riveting memoir from newcomer Emma Grove. Drawn in thick, emotive lines, with the refined style of a comics vet, Grove has created a singular, gripping depiction of the intersection of identities and trauma. The Third Person is a testament to the importance of having the space to heal and live authentically.

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Notes:

This is a memoir in the form of a graphic novel.

This book is 920 pages long.

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Archivist Comments:

I’ve seen some reviews saying not to be put off by the size, but I did make a note of it just in case.

There’s something so satisfying about the cover art on this one. Also: did not realise that the woman on the cover had two shadows until I was writing the image description. I think that’s a cool detail.

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