Silence and Seizure

Parenting Through Complexity

Christine Stewart-Nuñez

• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781771127363
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Silence and Seizure is a memoir about raising a son with a rare epilepsy syndrome—about the fear of seizures and the fear of unknown futures.

The story starts when Christine Stewart-Nuñez’s plan for a stable life disintegrates. She chases a diagnosis for her son Holden’s odd behavior and lapses in language, and she watches her marriage to Holden’s father end, understanding these changes through the lens of illness and its silences.

Seizing in ditches, apple-picking, appetizing shards of glass, a Picasso at the Tate, midnight ambulances, panic attacks at 37,000 feet, and mini-ninjas. Epilepsy impaired Holden, but for a time, Christine’s lack of knowledge created a barrier that disabled him. As she learns to be an advocate, her parenting process begins to parallel her artistic practice: observe, research, reflect, create, revise. With the wisdom of disabled writers serving as touchstones for reflection, Silence and Seizure captures how the lens of disability helped Christine frame the nuances of her experience as she developed tactics for living a more complex life where both mother and son can flourish.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Life Writing Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• About the Publisher
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface Inter: prefix noting between
• Prologue Intersection: a cutting between
• Chapter One Interrupted: a process stopped
• Chapter Two Intercept: to seize en route
• Chapter Three Intertwined: twisted together
• Chapter Four Interfere: to intervene without invitation
• Chapter Five Internecine: destructive to both sides in a conflict
• Chapter Six Intermittent: stopping unpredictably
• Chapter Seven Internal: situated on the inside
• Chapter Eight Intercourse: exchange, communion, connection
• Chapter Nine Interlocution: to speak between
• Chapter Ten Interictal: occurring between seizures
• Chapter Eleven Interstitial: a narrow opening
• Chapter Twelve Internalize: to incorporate within oneself
• Chapter Thirteen Interface: a point of meeting
• Chapter Fourteen Interdependent: mutually dependent
• Epilogue Interlucent: shining in the midst of other things
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press