Customer Reviews

Confidential Sources

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Thank you Barbara for finally offering a refreshing narrative on what life is like with an autistic child, as well as how she continues on as "normal" as possible for your other child and career. Barbara treats the reader like a best friend and it helps to abate the loneliness that is often a major part of a parent's life with autism. Now if only I had a large block of time to sit and read the entire book in one sitting!

Barbara and Jim Mulvaney (called Mulvaney) are globe trotting reporters, each trying to outdo the other. This "sequel" to "Exclusive" follows these reporters to Nicaragua on assignment from "Long Island Newsday." At one point Mulvaney buys a baby girl from a poor family and presents her to Barbara, who is understandably nonplussed. After a short period of raising the girl named Caridad ("Charity" in Spanish, named by Mulvaney because the girl had previously gone unnamed), Barbara's mother comes to visit from Brooklyn. On page 129 it is said that the baby leaves, but where Caridad went or who ended up raising her is never said.

Mulvaney somehow manages to get them expelled from the country, so it's on to Mexico. Their son Danny was born there in 1987. After some humorous descriptions of the local protocol, the trio travels to Hong Kong. Danny becomes trilingual, speaking Spanish, English and some Cantonese. While both are searching the globe for that breakthrough story, meanwhile their sons are providing them with news from the home front.

Danny's brother Jack was born shortly after Danny's third birthday; Danny suffers from a severe ear infection and fever. The once verbal child becomes nonverbal and exhibiting autistic behavior. Within a short space of time, he is displaying behavior suggestive of Kanner's autism.

The family returns to the U.S. and settles in California and later, Long Island. The boys grow and thrive; Jack's input makes a good story even better. One especially funny anecdote is found at the beginning of the book. Mulvaney acted a fool at Jack's hockey game and was understandably asked to leave. A copy of the Code of Conduct at the games is included and one can only smile at Jack's take on this as well.

My favorite parts were where Jack describes Danny's behavior and how he accepts him unconditionally. I love the way Jack makes it plain that Danny is a valuable and vital human being with a lot of gifts to share and offer. Hats off to Jack!

A good book. The only thing that could be considered confusing is where the fiction leaves off and real life reporting of their lives begins.

Stop the presses! Confidential Sources confirms that Barbara Fischkin has penned another winner! In her delightful sequel to Exclusive: Reporters in Love...and War, she once again brings her readers along for a wild ride following the escapades of two globe-trotting investigative journalists, "Fischkin" and "Mulvaney." An engaging tale, often poignant yet always entertaining, that allows us to vicariously live the exciting lives of husband and wife reporters searching out that next big news story as they build their careers and along the way, their family. Although the protagonists of Confidential Sources have the same names as the author and her husband, they are fictional characters. Or perhaps, better said, the fictional alter-egos of the real-life Barbara Fischkin and Jim Mulvaney!

Fischkin shows us that life is often like following a juicy news lead; the story you finally report is far different, yet far more interesting, than what you first anticipated. In tandem with her journey to scooping the next big news story from her husband, the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Jim Mulvaney, she graces her readers with a honest look into the world of autism. With her wry humor intact, Fischkin portrays the heartache, anger, fear and even moments of sheer joy that every family experiences when raising a child diagnosed with autism.

In a delightful surprise chapter written in the voice of her younger son, Jack, one gains insight on how dramatically life is impacted both good and bad, for children living with an autistic sibling. If the real-life Jack is as good a writer as his fictional alter-ego, then the Mulvaney/Fischkin writing talent is secure for another generation. Even at his young age, "Jack Mulvaney" the character has wisdom beyond his years: He recognizes that his older brother, Danny, even without speech and language since a toddler, has many gifts to share, not only with his family but with humanity as well. What a service this book does by showing us how precious life can be when parents fully love and accept every child regardless of obstacles.

If you only read one book this year, it must be Confidential Sources!

In telling the "Mulvaney-true" story of her marriage and life as a reporter, Barbara Fischkin gets to the heart of "true-true." She's funny and warm as she embellishes on reality, taking the reader from the slums of Mexico City to the high-rise expatriate enclaves of Hong Kong to the mountain haunt of Filipino rebels to ringside at a Long Island hockey rink. Barbara hits right on the nose the trade-off that journalists wrestle between the adrenaline rush of reporting a story and the power of personal relationships. Read this book and her first novel, Exclusive: Reporters in Love and War. You won't be sorry!