Customer Reviews

Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption: On the Meaning of Family and the Politics of Neurological Difference

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I must declare an interest. Savarese is a faculty colleague of mine. I wouldn't normally write an Amazon review of a colleague's work, but this book is so compelling and inspiring that in the past week since I finished it I have all but stopped strangers on the street to tell about it. There are several reasons to read it. It is a well-informed, thought-provoking and very specific book about autism, of special interest to readers like me who knew about autism only from a distance. It is a close-up and very frank story of an unusual and admirable family. It is (as one of your reviewers put it) an adventure story whose subject is the discovery of a mind and soul and the emergence of a young man into the world. Yet one comes to feel that it is also about all of us. Best of all, it's a great read, a real page-turner, with a novel's power to keep you up until midnight asking youself "what next?"

Yes, this is a book about autism and adoption, but it is also a book about all of us. It is about how we stereotype others, about how we give up on others, about how we love or don't love others. It is also beautifully and delightfully written by a literature professor who is passionate about his subject and knows how to tell a good story. I was amazed how vulnerable this family allowed itself to become in order to let the rest of us know what autism is really about and to challenge healthcare professionals to take another look at what they are doing to "treat" it. One thing for sure, I'll never look at an autistic person again without thinking about D.J. and the Savareses.

This is by far the best writing on autism I have ever read. The story is so fascinating; it unfolds like a mystery or an adventure novel. There is no self-pity just a really well written description of a boy who is able to struggle (really struggle) towards communication and inclusion (after a brutally abusive early childhood) with the help of his very human, but unbelievably dedicated parents. This not just another earnest book about overcoming disability. It is so eye-opening AND so much fun to read. The last chapter will blow you away.

I highly recommend this book. Savarese invites us to watch as his son DJ, who is autistic, acquires language. But the journey to language acquisition is hardly a simple feat. What we encounter in the text is not only DJ's, but his family's struggle with the condition of autism - a condition complicated further by institutions poised to reject the difficulties they associate with difference, and by individuals who abuse others and themselves in an effort to deal with their own helplessness. But even at the book's most critical junctures, there is an absence of self-pity. In fact, the book's greatest achievement is embodied in DJ's accomplishments and that of his parents. Yet the genius of the text is Savarese's ability to turn the focus away from their lives and onto the reader. Because even as we're moved to sympathize with their struggles, we're also moved to contemplate the comfortable state from which we evoke such sympathy. Throughout DJ's early life, we witness the problems associated with poverty, welfare, and a foster care system that is itself in need of care. Because these problems still persist, Savarese implores his readers to do more. The book's most enduring quality is not limited to DJ's emergence into selfhood, but in the possibility for its readers to re-imagine other ways of being, other ways of living in the world. This is an extraordinary book.

Savarese's account of his and his wife Emily's efforts to adopt and integrate a boy diagnosed with classic autism into their family (and also into a society that--even in this new millennium--segregates the severely disabled) is both excruciatingly heartbreaking and unbelievably joyful. His compelling narrative of the struggle to break through the bonds (of autism and abuse) that impede DJ's ability to communicate offers an unflinchingly honest reflection on the wretched state of the foster care system, the narrow-mindedness of the psychological and medical establishments, and his own limitations and failings. But more than that, it is a story of the astonishing power of human love to heal and connect. This book is a page-turner that had me thinking and talking about it for weeks afterwards.

On our overcrowded racetrack of memoirs, this is one that breaks out by a nose, then a head, then a length, then a quarter of the track. Its uniqueness and humanity cannot be overemphasized. Start with the daunting raw materials handed to the author. A writer and college professor, he and his wife Emily (an autism expert) adopt out of foster care an autistic boy, DJ, labeled as hopelessly nonverbal and "retarded." Through a variant of the keyboard based Facilitated Communication or "FC," he is, within 7 years, earning straight A's in a normal middle school. DJ is soon able not only to polish off his homework, but also offers deft observations on caregivers and classmates, his biological mother and sister, a mortally ill cousin, and the author's problems with his own remote father. The journey is recounted not in the flat, reflective tone of most memoir, but with the sinuous, unpredictable but exhilirating velocity of a novel. Savarese weaves his fluent grasp of neurology seamlessly into the narrative: the brief patches of science are like a sheen of water on which he spreads a host of anecdotal oils, resulting in a rainbow of fully developed characters and well-limned plot twists. The comparisons that come to mind are not so much the obvious ones (Oliver Sacks, Temple Grandin), but the magisterial science-tinged literary essayists of the last century----the Arthur Koestler of "The Case Of The Midwife Toad" and the Dr Lewis Thomas of "Late Night Thoughts on Mahler's Ninth Symphony." Savarese has gone down into the seemingly impenetrable underworld of autism and emerged---in the words of the poet Roethke---with it said. Say it he does, as does his wife, and DJ, who picks up the final chapter and runs with it toward the horizon. Everyone will be reading this book this summer. Don't be the only one on the beach without your head behind its beautifully designed cover, with a handsome young brown-eyed boy, seemingly DJ, himself staring down at the uncertain shore.
Richard Wirick

This book has many reasons to recommend it. For anyone with a specific interest in the literature of autism, this story and the complex issues it describes makes fascinating reading. For a more general audience, Savarese makes us question our notions of family and of our responsibility to a wider community. More broadly, he forces us to redefine our understanding of what is normal and what is possible -- as individuals, as families, as a society. There are no simple answers, and the author does not spare us the ambiguities. All is written in a style that reminds us that Savarese is, in fact, a poet.

Most compelling for me, however, was the memoir. Once in its grip, the book is hard to put down, often carrying me along as though I were lost in a novel. I was awed by the choices made by Savarese and his wife, and moved by the fierce love that binds them to their son. These three people are brave, humane, loving -- and fully human. I hope the author will let us know what becomes of his son and his family.

Reasonable People is a unique and profound roller coaster ride of book. I would highly recommend it because the story of this boy DJ is so moving and compelling. It's both a traditional narrative in which the human spirit and family love triumph over the hardship of trauma and autism and at the same time, a treatise on the current understanding of nature of autism, the role of trauma, on parenthood and adoption, on the welfare, foster care and educational systems, on family life in America in the 21st Century.

This is a book dense with insight and observation. Savarese doesn't spare the reader complexity and ambiguity while at the same time taking us on a ride through heartbreak, exhaustion, hope, terror and joy, frustration and loyalty and everything in between. In fact, in the writing of this book, the author shows the same perseverance, commitment and dedication to detail that he and his wife demonstrate in their relationship with their son, DJ.

I would love to see this book nominated for a Pulitzer.

REASONABLE PEOPLE: A MEMOIR OF AUTISM AND ADOPTION tells of the author's adopted teen son DJ, discarded at the age of three and today making great strides using the Facilitated Communication technique. Autism is more a spectrum of conditions than a single condition as the name implies, embracing everything from basic communication difficulties to Asperger's Syndrome. FC is a technique from Australia involving a facilitator who aids an autistic person in typing: REASONABLE PEOPLE discusses not only one family's experience, but changing treatment models for autism. Any family or collection interested in autism will want to learn from this.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

After reading so many different memoirs on autism, none really stood out until this one. It is honest and insightful. The love the Savarese's feel for their son is palpable. The detail of the struggles and successes are inspiring. If you are interested in learning about autism, this is the first book you should read.