Customer Reviews

Daniel Isn't Talking: A Novel

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I wondered if this novel would be a real "downer" as I knew it dealt with both autism and marital breakdown, but honestly it is one of those rare books that makes you laugh out loud, makes you cry a little, but pretty much compels you forward through the story as though you're in a race, because you just cannot put it down.

Of course the subject of autism is fascinating, and if you want to see up-close what it might be like to have a child with autism, here's your chance. However, that is not what is so special about the book. What is so amazing is that even in the midst of all this tragedy, Leimbach can be so smart and funny and optimistic. Her heroine, Melanie, is beautifully developed, beginning as a kind of doormat for her alpha male, somewhat superficial husband, and ending as a real fighter who is able to see through most anybody and who certainly won't be manipulated anymore. The guy who falls in love with her (and who is also Daniel's teacher) is a quirky and totally unique character who you won't have met before in fiction - can't help but like him. There are all sorts of peripheral characters who are so interesting you wish the novel was twice as long to include their stories, especially mysterious Veena, who Melanie hires as a cleaner, loses track of, then befriends again in a new and more meaningful bond.

All very compelling stuff, and the children are marvellously real. They come up with surprising, witty dialogue, even Daniel who is not able at first to speak. Amazing novel.

"Physically, he is a most perfect child. He has cupid lips and a shy half-smile, skin the color of a ripe peach. He is lovely beyond imagination and I have failed him. I don't know how I could have let this happen, or how I can look up from the floor or ever raise my head or call him my own again, having let him down so badly. Baby, baby, please don't be sick, I hear my own voice in my head. Little boy, come back to me."

My 7 year old son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS when he was 3 1/2. PDD-NOS is a nebulous term for a developmental delay on the Autism spectrum. Because it is a "spectrum" disorder, children may be severely autistic or high-functioning--and everything in between.

The "early years" were a nightmare. I think I would have panicked even more had I read Daniel Isn't Talking during that time. Like the fictitious Daniel, my son has an affinity (used to be obsession) with Thomas the Tank Engine and friends. To read about Daniel's affinity for this toy...how he screamed in terror at public restrooms because of the loud hand dryer...how his mother had to frantically distract him in the grocery store with "biscuits" (cookies) to avoid a meltdown... These scenarios are all too familiar for parents with an autistic child.

Author Marti Leimbach ehcoes the rage, confusion, and desperation that Moms (and some Dads) often feel as they watch their precious children spin, flap, and cry in a strange world...a world that some parents, unfortunately, may never penetrate.

If you have a child with autism, you will see your experience reflected on these pages. If you are someone who is unfamiliar with autism, do yourself a favor and get this book. Children, especially males, are being diagnosed with autism at an unprecedented number. The CDC and medical community try to say it's not the vaccinations, and yet, children lose their speech right after the MMR shot. They claim "well, our ability to diagnose has increased, that's why the numbers are spiking". Hello?! It doesn't take a brain surgeon to recognize autistic behavior...

I was in a restaurant a few weeks ago and saw a child have a metldown. Like Daniel, this boy had a "normal" older sister and two clean cut parents. I waatched as the patrons stared and judged this parents. My own son watched. Thankfully, my son doesn't act like that anymore and I say that not in arrogance, but in gratitude. His behavior used to tear me up and push me to the breaking point--especially since my husband and I had very little support outside of our little family (including babysitting or respite care).

A mother looked at me from a neighboring table and said "Aren't you glad that he doesn't act like that?", referring to my son.

My blood boiled.

I said "That boy over there has autism. My son does too. And he USED to act like that. It's not easy parenting an autistic child and they don't deserve our judgment."

She looked at me blankly, muttering to her tablemates "Children like that should be removed when they act like that. When I was a kid..."

Ignorance, not compassion...which is par for the course here in America.

The reason I tell this story is because Marti Leimbach tells similar stories, but with a literary genius I don't have. The story itself, written in first person point of view, is an absorbing read on its own. But because she describes the "secret lives" of autistic mothers with such exquisite prose(although Daniel is the central character), it's an important social commentary, as well.

The guilt, the doctors, ABA, play therapy, the second guessing, the panic, the patience, the jubilation at the milestones, the stares, the rejection, the ignorance of bystanders, the grief--it's all here.

Thank you, Marti, for writing this book--and giving voice to the private hells of many.

Melanie Marsh is a transplanted American living in London with her British husband, Stephen, and their children, four-year-old Emily and three-year-old Daniel. While Emily is delightfully precocious, creative, and gregarious, Daniel often shrieks at the top of his lungs, cannot speak intelligibly, and sleeps fitfully, leaving his mother a nervous wreck. A simple shopping trip is a Herculean endeavor with Daniel in tow. Stephen thinks that Melanie is overprotective and a bit unstable, but she is adamant in her belief that her son's bizarre behavior points to a serious underlying problem.

When Daniel is finally diagnosed with autism, Melanie is devastated, especially since he seemed perfect at birth. She says to herself, "You might think that a baby with autism gives you some warning so you won't love him quite as much as you do your normal child." However, there is no warning. "The change is gradual; the symptoms devious in the way they come and go." Stephen wants to place Daniel in a residential school with other special children, but Melanie insists that he is better off at home. Stephen's and Melanie's already shaky marriage begins to disintegrate as they grow ever more distant from and angry at one another.

"Daniel Isn't Talking" is a poignant and affecting novel about a mother's agony when she realizes that her child will never be like other children. With occasional black humor, Leimbach effectively depicts the day-to-day struggle involved in dressing, feeding, and caring for a little boy who cannot communicate his wants and needs. The reader feels Melanie's intense frustration as she impoverishes herself visiting one specialist after another, hoping for a miracle cure that does not exist.

Marti Leimbach is an intelligent and compassionate writer with a keen ear for dialogue and a gift for creating quirky, unpredictable, and compelling characters. She wisely refrains from making her heroine a saint; Melanie is an intense and sometimes irrational woman who allows her emotions to overwhelm her. Although Melanie's husband is inattentive and cold, he is far from a one-dimensional monster. Stephen loves his family, but not enough to make him stay with a wife who is obsessed with her children 24/7.

My one quibble is with the character of Andy O'Connor, a charismatic and altruistic Irishman whose expertise in working with autistic children gives Melanie hope that her son will learn to speak. Andy is a bit too good to be true, and his romantic interest in Melanie injects a jarring soap opera element into the book. Still, "Daniel Isn't Talking" is highly recommended for its vivid portrayal of a fiercely devoted mother who refuses to give up on her child.

This is a book that really gets to the core of your feelings. Marti is a writer that makes the words flow and when I first picked up the book I read straight through to page 150 at 3:00 a.m.! I am the parent of an autistic son and now that he's 12, I have read all the manuals, all the teachings, all the statistics and I have learned as much if not more than the experts (as most of us parents do). This book is a novel but really touched my heart - Marti describes situations and her feelings exactly how I would as a mother. After you cry, the next sentence you are laughing.
I will recommend this book to everyone I see! Thank you Marti for enlightening us and riveting us with what sometimes seems to be an unbelievable life - our lives as parents of autistic children is a novel in the making and Marti pulled it off beautifully!

Melanie is an American living in London. She has everything...a house, a handsome English husband, and two beautiful children.

But Daniel her youngest child isn't like other children. He doesn't talk and has a strange obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine. She finds out after visiting numerous specialists that Daniel is autistic. Her husband Stephen thinks that this diagnosis is as good as a death sentence and wants Daniel to be enrolled in a special school as soon as possible.

Melanie on the other hand is determined for Daniel to be like any other child and seeks help from every corner. Among Melanie's many desperations, the marriage falls apart, but she does find Andy, a play therapist who is supposed to be able to work wonders. And he does. Before long Daniel is playing and talking, and a new love is blossoming, but can Melanie find a new happiness?

This novel is absolutely wonderful. It pulls you through all the emotions imaginable, and Melanie is so endearing and strong that you wished you knew her! There is nothing she will not do for Daniel, including pawning her engagement ring and selling half her furniture. Through all the sorrow and hardships, Melanie always manages to find hope, sometimes at the expense of her own happiness, but she is so believable. You feel what she feels, cry when she cries and ultimately, are ecstatic for her when she makes the right decisions for herself.

In Melanie, Marti Leimbach has created an unlikely hero, bringing to the fore the humanity of families with disabled children and the hope there is for them, warts and all.

Armchair Interviews says this reviewer found Daniel Isn't Talking totally "un-putdownable."

What I truly love about this book is that Melanie voices out loud, what we all think inside. Yes, she is a "fictional" character, however, Marti has truly written about what life is like in the home and life of a family, sibling, marriage and child walking the journey of autism. The struggles, the heartache, the victories. How we lose friends, yet how we can gain one who understands and embarces our child and looks beyond autism to see the CHILD inside. Many view ABA as something "wrong". Please. Every child is different, individual. Whatever style of therapy works for your child...use it and allow them to sore...whether ABA, VB, RDI, DIR, TEACHH...
Marti's book has truly touched hearts. Yes, it is a noval, but is is also truth of what happens in the world of Autism...then and today! Thank you Marti for the courage to write it, to be vulnerable. Thank you! The parents in our county are thankful, and look forward to meeting you someday!

This is such a great book. It's about autism and a desperate struggle to secure a future for a child. Yet it's funny, uplifting and utterly engaging. It is definitively not one of those roll-in-misery stories that surface too often in the non-fiction charts. It's a sparkling, fun novel, albeit one that will put a lump in your throat at times, and from a writer whose voice resonates with care and humanity and wilfully eccentric good sense. I read it at one sitting and can hardly imagine any reader doing otherwise.

Outstanding book. I read this one sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. A personal and honest look at a family that has reached the breaking point and ultimately transcends it. Authentic - five stars.

I don't normally read this kind of book, but picked it up to give me a change-of-pace from all the thrillers I've been reading. The subject matter, a family dealing with a diagnosis of autism for their youngest child, is of interest to me since I work in an elementary school, and know families who must deal with autism. I found the narrative to be interesting, and the narrator to be likable though heavily burdened with the pressures of caring for the child when almost everyone else wants her to give up. Overall, this book presented a realistic look at a difficult subject, and was well done.

Daniel Isn't Talking is an unforgettable novel about a young woman who is both frantic and extraordinarily brave at the moment of diagnosis of autism in her child. The character, Melanie, is married to a high-flying Londoner, Stephen. Their marriage is already complicated before the diagnosis, and becomes bitter as the tensions mount over what to do to help Daniel. Stephen wants to send Daniel to a school that "deals" with this sort of thing. Melanie feels that she may be able to do more for Daniel and that there is no reason to believe that the boy has a hopeful outcome unless they try to find some better answers than those being offered.

As Melanie pursues alternatives to the conventional care of an autistic child, Stephen spends more time at work and then eventually the couple separate as Stephen starts seeing an old girlfriend. Certain that Melanie is crazy to try so hard to help their son, Stephen begins putting financial pressure on her so that she will be unable to pursue any alternative treatments for Daniel. However, the "crazy" ideas that Melanie have turn out to be effective and eventually Stephen sees this.

It is amazing to watch Melanie having to "prove herself" to doctors and teachers and speech therapists, and even to her own husband. She does it with humor and grace; you cannot help but admire her. Stephen, once dead set against her notions, comes to admire her, too, and it is at this point that Melanie suddenly becomes unsure what to do. In the final scene you watch her wavering between alternatives - not over what to do with regard to Daniel - but what to do with regard to her own future.

For me, a wonderful read.