Customer Reviews

Eye Contact

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What a disturbingly beautiful book. I read this in one big gulp because the mystery was too compelling to put on hold. In that genre it reminded me most of Ross Macdonald, not because of formal qualities but because it was more about the mystery of relationship than the actual crime. As in her previous book, Cammie McGovern writes with tortuous brilliance about betrayal and love. At the heart of the story is the mystery of Cara's autistic child, Adam, but her broken friendships with Suzette and Kevin, which prefigure and establish the lifework of raising Adam, are equally compelling. If Adam is a mystery, so is Cara. She seems destined to have become the mother of this child, even though there's nothing divine or cosmic leading her down that path. Her interests, her failures, and her nature lead her to become a good mother and a detective of the human soul. Cara is a wonderfully flawed person, a richly reflective and loving mother and friend. She confronts the "autism epidemic" without much anger or rancor, perhaps because her choices have led her to be a single mother and maybe because she's learning what she needs to learn. I kept being struck by how well-equipped she was for loving Adam, even though she often feels inadequate and certainly is not as well-supported by her community as she might be. Like many protagonists she has a maddening tendency to go it alone. In the course of the novel she learns to rely on others, which helps her let Adam do the same. That's always good to see, especially given Adam's autism and her fear and isolation. The secondary characters are vivid and moving - especially the other children. Most of them are somewhere on the autistic spectrum, but after a while that seems like a meaningless distinction. The term differently-abled took on real meaning for me. McGovern's narrative is shared by enough capable, perceptive people to make us appreciate each person's perceptual gifts. One must do that to solve a mystery - at least in our day and age. At several points characters think they've found the essential clue, and the reader goes along with it. In the end, the situation is too complex for the "lone gunman" solution. Of course, that's also true of autism or of life. It takes a village - and speaking of that, I loved the small-town ambiance of this novel. At first Cara seems to have left her past behind, like a person who has moved to the big city, but over the course of the novel her past keeps knocking until she turns to face it. Thanks to the setting, that movement seems natural instead of contrived. This is a beautifully written work, but what you'll remember most are the intensity of feeling and the author's honest account of parenting an autistic child. I closed the book in awe and wonder - this life is beautiful and heartrending. So is the book.

I am a lover of mystery novels, and Eye Contact more than fills my requirements for a satisfying read. The book offers a gruesome and unfortunately believable crime, humanly flawed characters, psychologically disturbing yet frighteningly normal suspects, and a realistic yet uplifting conclusion. Although I was initially drawn to Eye Contact because of the mystery element (which certainly kept me turning the pages eager to find out "who done it"), the mystery is not what sticks with me a week after finishing the book. Ultimately, Eye Contact is a book about parenting. McGovern's quiet and occasionally heartbreaking insights into the parent/child relationship take my breath away. Eye Contact captures the essential paradox of parenthood: loving our children for who they are within the limitations of who we are.

As an inside look at autism and special needs families, McGovern's novel is a five-star winner. As a psychological thriller, however, it is painfully terrible. On a literary technical level, it is an enjoyable read. As a novel about female friendships, well, one must wonder what kind of alternate reality McGovern's personal friendships exist in.

The novel opens with a criminal mystery--two children have disappeared at recess. Hours later, the body of the girl is discovered, and the only witness to the murder is her autistic nine-year-old schoolmate Adam. The story is told from a half a dozen perspectives, but it is truly driven by Adam's mother Cara, a single mom who has devoted her entire life to raising her special needs son.

McGovern's characters either have special needs (autism, brain damage, social disorders, agoraphobia, and addiction) or have personal and professional lives which are consumed by such conditions. As a mother, Cara has shifted parenting philosophies during her son's growth, in a constant struggle between making him as "normal" as possible and admitting that letting follow his own innate preferences makes him the happiest. Do you ask the world to treat an autistic son as a normal child, or do you admit upfront that your child requires special accommodations?

In addition to her parenting experience, Cara had grade- and high school experience with a friend who was brain damaged as a result of a household accident. She has lifelong guilt and doubt about the way she related to her friend in their youth.

For all its strengths in explore the complex emotions surrounding disabilities, as a thriller, Eye Contact is a convoluted mess. The novel suffers from an abundance of characters, some of which drop off in importance, and others who pop up out of nowhere. Their lives are loosely interconnected at the opening of the story and end up in a tangled web (with dozens of skeletons in the closet) by the end. Throughout the novel, certain personal histories just don't make sense, and McGovern's attempt to wrap it all up at the end doesn't justify the flimsiness in the exposition of the tale.

The most frustrating aspect of the book is the true crime, which has terrific potential and a lackluster resolution. It is "solved" a half-dozen times, each with a different culprit. By the time the real killer is found, the reader is exhausted from having been toyed with, and Cara's personal history is (not convincingly) tied to the entire incident.

Eye Contact takes the mystery genre to a brand new place with the completely original character of Adam, an autistic boy who witnesses a horrible crime. Obviously penned by someone with a great deal of first-hand knowledge about autism, we as readers are led into a world many of us have never had to imagine before. The rich detail of Adam's inner world is shared with us, as well as the thoughts of his dedicated mother and the other adults and children around him. In addition to being a page-turning mystery, it's a touching portrait of a mother helping her son negotiate the world around him. And the final image of the book has haunted me since I finished reading.

Eye Contact is a richly textured, very satisfying read that succeeds on every level.

Wow. Now I understand how Eye Contact made it to all those "Hot for 2006" lists. This novel was well written, compelling, and thoughtful. As I read along, I came up with new theories of whodunnit and how, and kept revising them with more information. Then in the end, I was wrong, and it turned out that the answer was right there in front of me the whole time- I loved that! I read a great deal, and this book is defintely a cut above the rest. Elegant and complex in style, McGovern is also able to attain a conversational tone that makes this enjoyable and easy to read, but very hard to put down. Many of my friends have read it as well, and we can't stop talking about it. This book has made my summer!

Cammie McGovern has written a thoughtful and engrossing book. It is actually that rare sort of book that pursues two avenues at once, and navigates the plotlines with ease. One part of the book is mystery; when a little girl's body is found in the woods next to the elementary school playground, the only witness is a little boy with autism. Non-verbal, and low functioning, it is left to his mother and a sympathetic detective to try to get to the boy's inner self to unmask the murderer.

But. at the same time, the book also beautifully and thoughtfully writes about the challenges of raising a child with autism. "Eye Contact" does not spare the reader the harsh realities of the life. What other parents take for granted - a stroll through the supermarket, a movie theater on a rainy afternoon - these are minefields of tantrums, meltdowns, and a total misunderstanding because of the lack of communication. The mother in this book is nothing less than heroic, and the other characters- the little boy, the police officers, and high school friends from the mother's past - all envelope you as the mystery progresses.

What a great read! Cammie McGovern has written a great book, and since the book jacket also identifies her as the mother of a child with autism, we could also call this book a memoir of sorts. This is a truly talented and courageous writer, who has left this reader anxious for the next book.

I so enjoyed this book. After reading that it was going to be a great read, I ordered it from Amazon.UK before it's release here. I thought the characters were so well-developed, I could almost imagine the sounds of their voices. The boy in this story has autism, and the author's ability to capture his thoughts was amazing. It made me feel that I was joining him in his journey. The ending is quite a shocker!

This book is billed as a literary mystery, which is fair enough, but its true value is in the world it creates. Full of telling detail and honest, heart-breaking scenes of mothering an autistic child, this novel gets to the heart of what it means to be a parent, and what love really is.

This is not a typical book for me to read. Having said that I took a chance on this book. I was certainly not disappointed. The book was written in a way to understand a mother's deep devotion and love for her autistic child that it opened my eyes to what must go on with someone living with someone with autisim. Instead of thinking of it as a life sentece, this mother perservered and kept going. The murder in the book is felt throughout. I never knew who actually did it until the end. I had to keep reading and read this book in less than 24 hours. I must say that this author has wrote a very deep heartful look into love, honesty, betrayal, feeling worthless, being bullied and made it all happen in this novel to have a very heartfelt ending. I think the greatest gift this author has given me is to really open my eyes and see beyond myself.

Constantly shifting perspectives and moving steadily from character to character, author Cammie McGovern uses the métier of the literary thriller and combines it the complex issues of autism. The result is a fast-paced novel of great psychological trepidation, where only the memories of a vulnerable nine-year-old child can unlock the mystery of a grisly murder.

Like a lot of other parents, Cara never expected to have an autistic son. She spent the first few years of Adam's life living in denial, refusing to get him tested, hoping against hope that his affinity for getting lost in his own world with no language at all and no communication would eventually correct itself. Lost in his thoughts he would automatically follow passengers of a bus, reverse his pronouns, and echo words of comfort exactly as they are given to him.

One afternoon at Woodside Elementary School, just like Hansel and Gretel, Adam and Amelia, a young girl whom he was playing with, suddenly walk off into the woods. While Adam is later found alive, Amelia is found viciously stabbed - there's a small knife wound, one punctured lung, and surprisingly little blood. How did two kids get away and across a soccer field without being seen? And what did Adam actually witness?

No one can be sure whether Adam can remember anything of the event and the few images that shine unsteadily through his brain seem to have little bearing on reality. Lost in his own world, Adam is visited by police officials and by a child psychologist who use various techniques to jump-start his memory. Everything about Adam is different and Cara is convinced that in these differences lie clues to what happened, if only she can interpret them correctly.

Meanwhile, Morgan, a gifted but troubled middle school student watches the images of Amelia on the television and becomes certain he can solve the crime. One thought dominates his every waking moment - he is convinced that if he finds out who killed Amelia, he will be forgiven for a crime he committed. Morgan believes that Chris, a fellow classmate - who has a degree of obsessive-compulsive disorder and was being persecuted by bullies - can tell him what really happened on that bloody afternoon in the woods.

Chris's actions certainly could have has something to do with Amelia's death, and although Morgan is deeply committed to finding the perpetrator, it is ultimately Adam who holds the key. One of the results of Adam's autism is his admiration for classical music and his love of opera. He has perfect pitch and faultless hearing capacity. Cara knows that only through music can they perhaps make a connection. For Adam music is "a string that pulls him up, through rooms, out doors and ultimately away from her."

As fragments of that afternoon begin to return to Adam, Cara is forced to confront her own past, her history of failed friendships, particularly with Suzette her best friend from high school and her relationship with Adam's father, Kevin. When they were young, Suzette had broken her heart and Kevin had abandoned her, Consequently, Cara has gone though most of her adult life feeling as though she would never again reach out to people.

McGovern presents an eclectic assortment of characters, all connected in some way with Amelia's murder: Suzette's sorrowful and emotionally distressed mother; and Suzette's twin brother Teddy who has built his life around caring for an agoraphobic sister.

As Morgan gets caught up in a conviction that perhaps only Chris can prove, Cara's need to unlock Adam's mind is motivated by her own past and the hopes that she can free her son from this armor he's adopted to take on the world and protect himself from pain he doesn't understand.

McGovern cleverly weaves the themes of deliverance and forgiveness into her story and there's no doubt that her impassioned and well-researched views of autism are enlightening and informative. The centerpiece of the novel is obviously Cara's love for her son and her journey towards self-sacrifice.

All Cara ever wants for Adam is a chance at recovery, to make connections and have friends of his own. Amelia's death acts as a type of a catalyst for her, and she realizes just how large and consuming this kind of love for a mother who has son with special needs can be. Mike Leonard July 06.