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Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's Paperback – September 9, 2008
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“As sweet and funny and sad and true and heartfelt a memoir as one could find.” —from the foreword by Augusten Burroughs
Ever since he was young, John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” It was not until he was forty that he was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way he saw himself—and the world. A born storyteller, Robison has written a moving, darkly funny memoir about a life that has taken him from developing exploding guitars for KISS to building a family of his own. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien yet always deeply human.
- Print length302 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThree Rivers Press
- Publication dateSeptember 9, 2008
- Reading age14 - 18 years
- Dimensions5.16 x 0.64 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100307396185
- ISBN-13978-0307396181
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“An entertaining, provocative and highly-readable story by a great storyteller...you will rethink your own definition of normal, and it may spark a new appreciation of the untapped potential behind every quirky, awkward person who doesn’t quite fit in.”
—New York Times blog
“Deeply felt and often darkly funny, Look Me in the Eye is a delight.”
—People magazine (Critics Choice, 4 Stars)
“It's a fantastic life story (highlights include building guitars for KISS) told with grace, humor, and a bracing lack of sentimentality.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A highly entertaining, crazy ride...heartbreaking, inspiring and funny.”
—Psychology Today
“Lean, powerful in its descriptive accuracy and engaging in its understated humor...Emotionally gripping.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Robison’s lack of finesse with language is not only forgivable, but an asset to his story . . . His rigid sentences are arguably more telling of his condition than if he had created the most graceful prose this side of Proust.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Look Me in the Eye is a fantastic read that takes readers into the mind of an Aspergian both through its plot and through the calm, logical style in which Robison writes. . . Even if you have no personal connections with Asperger’ s, you’ll find that Robison—like his brother, Burroughs—has a life worth reading about.”
—Daily Camera
“Not only does Robison share with his famous brother, Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors), a talent for writing; he also has that same deadpan, biting humor that's so irresistible.”
—ELLE magazine
“Dramatic and revealing...There's an endearing quality to Robison and his story that transcends the "Scissors" connection … Look Me in the Eye is often drolly funny and seldom angry or self-pitying. Even when describing his fear that he'd grow up to be a sociopathic killer, Robison brings a light touch to what could be construed as dark subject matter…Robison is also a natural storyteller and engaging conversationalist.”
—The Boston Globe
“This is no misery memoir…[Robison] is a gifted storyteller with a deadpan sense of humour and the book is a rollicking read.”
—Times (UK)
“Look Me in the Eye should be required reading for teachers and human services professionals, concerned parents and anyone who likes a well-crafted story of a life zestfully lived to the beat of wildly different drums.”
—Bookreporter
“Robison's memoir is must reading for its unblinking (as only an Aspergian can) glimpse into the life of a person who had to wait decades for the medical community to catch up with him.”
—Booklist
“Well-written and fascinating.” —Library Journal
“Thoughtful and thoroughly memorable…Moving…In the end, Robison succeeds in his goal of “helping those who are struggling to grow up or live with Asperger’s” to see how it “is not a disease” but “a way of being” that needs no cure except understanding and encouragement from others.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Affecting, on occasion surprisingly comic memoir about growing up with Asperger’s syndrome….The view from inside this little-understood disorder offers both cold comfort and real hope, which makes it an exceptionally useful contribution to the literature.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Of course this book is brilliant; my big brother wrote it. But even if it hadn’t been created by my big, lumbering, swearing, unshaven ‘early man’ sibling, this is as sweet and funny and sad and true and heartfelt a memoir as one could find, utterly unspoiled, uninfluenced, and original.”
—from the foreword by Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors
“Look Me In The Eye is a wonderful surprise on so many levels: it is compassionate, funny, and deeply insightful. By the end, I realized my vision of the world had undergone a slight but permanent alteration; I had taken for granted that our behavioral conventions were meaningful, when in fact they are arbitrary. That he is able to illuminate something so simple (but hidden, and unalterable) proves that John Elder Robison is at least as good a writer as he is an engineer, if not better.”
—Haven Kimmel (who was in attendance at the 1978 KISS tour*), author of A Girl Named Zippy
“I hugely enjoyed reading Look Me in the Eye. This book is a wild rollercoaster ride through John Robison’s life--from troubled teenage prankster to successful employment in electronics, music, and classic cars. A kindly professor introduced him to electrical engineering, which led to jobs where he found techie soulmates that were like him. A fascinating glimpse into the mind of an engineer which should be on the reading list of anyone who is interested in the human mind.”
—Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation
“John Robison's book is an immensely affecting account of a life lived according to his gifts rather than his limitations. His story provides ample evidence for my belief that individuals on the autistic spectrum are just as capable of rich and productive lives as anyone else.”
—Daniel Tammet, author of Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
About the Author
JOHN ELDER ROBISON is the New York Times bestselling author of Look Me in the Eye, Be Different and Raising Cubby. He lectures widely on autism and neurological differences, and is a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. John also serves on committees and review boards for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. A machinery enthusiast and avid photographer, John lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with his family, animals, and machines.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A Little Misfit
It was inconceivable to me that there could be more than one way to play in the dirt, but there it was. Doug couldn't get it right. And that's why I whacked him. Bang! On both ears, just like I saw on The Three Stooges. Being three years old was no excuse for disorderly play habits.
For example, I would use my mother's kitchen spoon to scoop out a ditch. Then, I would carefully lay out a line of blue blocks. I never mixed my food, and I never mixed my blocks. Blue blocks went with blue blocks, and red blocks with red ones. But Doug would lean over and put a red block on top of the blue ones.
Couldn't he see how wrong that was?
After I had whacked him, I sat back down and played. Correctly.
Sometimes, when I got frustrated with Doug, my mother would walk over and yell at me. I don't think she ever saw the terrible things he did. She just saw me whack him. I could usually ignore her, but if my father was there, too, he would get really mad and shake me, and then I would cry.
Most of the time, I liked Doug. He was my first friend. But some of the things he did were just too much for me to handle. I would park my truck by a log, and he would kick dirt on it. Our moms would give us blocks, and he would heap his in a sloppy pile and then giggle about it. It drove me wild.
Our playdates came to an abrupt end the following spring. Doug's father graduated from medical school and they moved far, far away to an Indian reservation in Billings, Montana. I didn't really understand that he could leave despite my wishes to the contrary. Even if he didn't know how to play correctly, he was my only regular playmate. I was sad.
I asked my mother about him each time we went to the park, where I now played alone. "I'm sure he'll send you a postcard," my mother said, but she had a funny look on her face, and I didn't know what to make of it. It was troubling.
I did hear the mothers whispering, but I never knew what they meant.
". . . drowned in an irrigation ditch . . ."
". . . the water was only six inches deep . . ."
". . . must have fallen on his face . . ."
". . . his mother couldn't see him, so she went outside and found him there . . ."
What is an irrigation ditch? I wondered. All I could figure out was, they weren't talking about me. I had no idea Doug was dead until years later.
Looking back, maybe my friendship with Doug wasn't the best omen. But at least I stopped whacking other kids. Somehow I figured out that whacking does not foster lasting friendship.
That fall, my mother enrolled me at Philadelphia's Mulberry Tree Nursery School. It was a small building with kids' drawings on the walls and a dusty playground enclosed with a chain-link fence. It was the first place where I was thrown together with children I didn't know. It didn't go well.
At first, I was excited. As soon as I saw the other kids, I wanted to meet them. I wanted them to like me. But they didn't. I could not figure out why. What was wrong with me? I particularly wanted to make friends with a little girl named Chuckie. She seemed to like trucks and trains, just like me. I knew we must have a lot in common.
At recess, I walked over to Chuckie and patted her on the head. My mother had shown me how to pet my poodle on the head to make friends with him. And my mother petted me sometimes, too, especially when I couldn't sleep. So as far as I could tell, petting worked. All the dogs my mother told me to pet had wagged their tails. They liked it. I figured Chuckie would like it, too.
Smack! She hit me!
Startled, I ran away. That didn't work, I said to myself. Maybe I have to pet her a little longer to make friends. I can pet her with a stick so she can't smack me. But the teacher intervened.
"John, leave Chuckie alone. We don't hit people with sticks."
"I wasn't hitting her. I was trying to pet her."
"People aren't dogs. You don't pet them. And you don't use sticks."
Chuckie eyed me warily. She stayed away for the rest of the day. But I didn't give up. Maybe she likes me and doesn't know it, I thought. My mother often told me I would like things I thought I wouldn't, and sometimes she was right.
The next day, I saw Chuckie playing in the big sandbox with a wooden truck. I knew a lot about trucks. And I knew she wasn't playing with her truck correctly. I would show her the right way. She will admire me and we will be friends, I thought. I walked over to her and took the truck away and sat down.
"Miss Laird! John took my truck!"
That was fast!
"I did not! I was showing her how to play with it! She was doing it wrong!" But Miss Laird believed Chuckie, not me. She led me away and gave me a truck of my own. Chuckie didn't follow. But tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow, I would succeed in making friends.
When tomorrow came, I had a new plan. I would talk to Chuckie. I would tell her about dinosaurs. I knew a lot about dinosaurs, because my father took me to the museum and showed me. Sometimes I had scary dreams about them, but overall, dinosaurs were the most interesting thing I knew of.
I walked over to Chuckie and sat down.
"I like dinosaurs. My favorite is the brontosaurus. He's really big."
Chuckie did not respond.
"He's really big but he just eats plants. He eats grass and trees.
"He has a long neck and a long tail."
Silence.
"He's as big as a bus.
"But an allosaurus can eat him."
Chuckie still didn't say anything. She looked intently at the ground, where she was drawing in the sand.
"I went to see the dinosaurs at the museum with my dad.
"There were little dinosaurs, too.
"I really like dinosaurs. They're neat!"
Chuckie got up and went inside. She had completely ignored me!
I looked down at the ground where she had been staring. What was she looking at that was so interesting? There was nothing there.
All my attempts to make friends had failed. I was a failure. I began to cry. Alone in the corner of the playground, I sobbed and smashed the toy truck into the ground again and again and again, until my hands hurt too much to do it anymore.
At the end of recess, I was still there, sitting by myself. Staring into the dirt. Too humiliated to face the other kids. Why don't they like me? What's wrong with me? That was where Miss Laird found me.
"It's time to go back inside." She grabbed my little paw and towed me in. I wanted to roll up in a ball and disappear.
Recently, one of my friends read the passage above and said, "Shit, John, you're still that way now." He's right. I am. The only real difference is that I have learned what people expect in common social situations. So I can act more normal and there's less chance I'll offend anyone. But the difference is still there, and it always will be.
People with Asperger's or autism often lack the feelings of empathy that naturally guide most people in their interactions with others. That's why it never occurred to me that Chuckie might not respond to petting in the same way a dog would. The difference between a small person and a medium-sized dog was not really clear to me. And it never occurred to me that there might be more than one way to play with a toy truck, so I could not understand why she objected to my showing her.
The worst of it was, my teachers and most other people saw my behavior as bad when I was actually trying to be kind. My good intentions made the rejection by Chuckie all the more painful. I'd watched my parents talk to other grown-ups and I figured I could talk to Chuckie. But I had overlooked one key thing: Successful conversations require a give and take between both people. Being Aspergian, I missed that. Totally.
I never interacted with Chuckie again.
I stopped trying with any of the kids. The more I was rejected, the more I hurt inside and the more I retreated.
I had better luck dealing with grown-ups. My disjointed replies didn't bring the conversation to an abrupt halt. And I tended to listen to them more than I listened to kids, because I assumed they knew more. Grown-ups did grown-up things. They didn't play with toys, so I didn't have to show them how to play. If I tried to pet a grown-up with a stick, he'd take it away. He wouldn't humiliate me by yelling and running to the teacher. Grown-ups explained things to me, so I learned from them. Kids weren't so good at that.
Most of the time, I played by myself, with my toys. I liked the more complex toys, especially blocks and Lincoln Logs. I still remember the taste of Lincoln Logs. When I wasn't chewing them, I made forts and houses and fences. When I got a little bigger, I got an Erector Set. I was very proud of that. I built my first machines with the Erector Set.
Machines were never mean to me. They challenged me when I tried to figure them out. They never tricked me, and they never hurt my feelings. I was in charge of the machines. I liked that. I felt safe around them. I also felt safe around animals, most of the time. I petted other people's dogs when we went to the park. When I got my poodle, I made friends with him, too.
"Look what your grandpa Jack sent you, John Elder!" (My parents named me John Elder Robison to honor my great-grandpa John Glenn Elder, who died before I was born.) My dad had brought home a wooly, ill-tempered, and probably genetically defective dog, most likely a reject from some dog pound. But I didn't know that. I was fascinated. He growled at me and wet the floor when my father put him down.
I wasn't scared of him, because he was considerably smaller than me. I had not yet learned that sharp teeth can come in small packages.
"Poodles are very smart dogs," my father told me.
Maybe he was smart, but he wasn't very friendly. I named him Poodle, beginning a long tradition of functional pet naming. I didn't really know what to do with a dog, and I was always squeezing him and grabbing his tail and yanking in an effort to figure that out. He bit me whenever I yanked too hard. Sometimes he bit hard enough to make my arms bleed, and I would cry. Years later, I told that story to my mother, who said, "John Elder, Poodle never bit you hard enough to make your arms bleed! If he had, that would have been the end of Poodle in our house." All I could say to that was "Little bites are a big deal to little people." And that's how I remember it.
Once, I locked him in my room and he got out. He chewed a dog-sized hole in the bedroom door. We found him lying in the sun in the backyard.
Seeing that, I tried chewing the door myself. My teeth barely made a dent in the paint. I didn't even manage to bite a splinter out of the wood. I realized that Poodle had very sharp teeth. I learned to put my toys away before I went to bed every night. If I forgot, Poodle would come in during the night and eat them.
My parents didn't like Poodle because he ate their furniture. Despite that, Poodle and I slowly became friends. I was always a little wary of him, though, because I never knew what he'd do.
Our home wasn't very happy. The dog ate my toys and snapped, and my parents always fought. One night, I awoke to them yelling at each other in the next room. They often fought at night when they thought I was asleep. It was always stressful and unsettling to me, but this time was different. My mother was crying in addition to yelling. She didn't usually cry.
"Momma!" I yelled loud to make sure she heard me.
"It's okay, John Elder, go to sleep." She came in and patted me on the head, but she went right back out.
I didn't like that at all. Usually, she sat with me, and petted me, and sang to me till I fell asleep. Where did she go? What's going on?
The loud fights were disturbing because I was sure they were fighting about me, and I knew if they got tired of me they could just leave me somewhere to fend for myself. I thought, I have to be really good, so they won't get rid of me.
So I tried to be very quiet and act asleep. I figured that's what they expected.
"He'll go back to sleep," my mother said, quietly. Hearing that, I was wide awake, and even more scared.
"No, he won't," my father cried. "He'll remember this night when he's forty." And then he started sobbing, too. Anything that made both of them cry must be very, very bad.
"Daddy! Don't make Momma cry!" I could not help myself. I wanted to hide under the bed but I knew they'd find me. I was terrified.
My mother came back in and sang softly to me, but she sounded funny. After a few minutes, though, I fell into a troubled sleep.
Much later, I learned that my father had been having an affair with a secretary from the German department at the university where he was studying. My mother told me she looked just like her. I guess the affair unraveled that night, and my parents' marriage unraveled some more, too. That was when my father started to turn mean.
When I woke up the next morning, he was still in bed. He wasn't at school. "Your father is tired," my mother said. "He's resting." I walked over to him. He smelled normal, and he was snoring. I left him alone and my mother walked me to school like she always did.
Product details
- Publisher : Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (September 9, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 302 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307396185
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307396181
- Reading age : 14 - 18 years
- Item Weight : 8.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.16 x 0.64 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #47,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Biographies of People with Disabilities (Books)
- #40 in Autism Spectrum Disorder
- #1,619 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

John Elder Robison grew up in the 1960s before the Asperger diagnosis came into common use. After dropping out of high school, John worked in the music business where he created sound effects and electronic devices, including the signature illuminated, smoking, and rocket firing guitars he built for KISS. Later John worked on some of the first video games and talking toys at Milton Bradley. After a ten year career in electronics John founded Robison Service, a specialty automobile company in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Today, in addition to running the car company, John is the Neurodiversity Scholar in Residence at the College of William & Mary, and advisor to the neurodiversity program at Landmark College. John serves on the board of INSAR, the International Society for Autism Research, and is widely known as an advocate for people with autism and neurological differences.
John is the author of Switched On; Look Me in the Eye; Be Different, Adventures of a free-range Aspergian; and Raising Cubby, a unique tale of parenting. John's writing has been translated into sixteen languages and his work is sold in over 60 countries. His writing also appears in a number of magazines and he's a regular blogger on Psychology Today.
In addition to his autism advocacy work, John is a lifelong car enthusiast, an avid hiker, a photographer, a music lover, and a world-class champion eater. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Find John on the web:
www.robisonservice.com - the car company
jerobison.blogspot.com - John's blog
JohnElderRobison - on Facebook
@johnrobison - on Twitter
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John had a unique writing style. He used the showing instead of telling model a lot. He showed us other's reactions to how he acted by using dialogue. When he smiled after hearing someone died he showed us the reaction he got. “I smiled at her words. She turned to me with a shocked expression on her face. “What! Do you think thats funny?” I felt embarrassed and humiliated” (Robison 29). He makes sure the reader knows how he feels by showing his responses. John also used a lot of descriptions. When describing his therapist, Dr. Finch, he stated, “He was old and chubby, with white hair and a vaguely foreign accent” (Robison 56). He allows the readers to create an image of all the characters. His writing style captures the reader's attention for the entire book. Anyone who enjoys detailed stories will enjoy Robison’s writing style.
The book allows you to relate to John’s life. He puts you in a position to see things from his perspective. He brings you through all the memorable moments of his life, and allows the reader to empathize for him. The author had an impact on what characters you like and dislike. For example, reading the book it’s impossible to like his father because of the picture painted of him. “As my parents fought more, my father got meaner. Especially at night. He was nastiest then because he’d started drinking wine. He’d pick me up and shake me. I thought my head might come off” (Robison 15). Since John introduces his father as a mean person early in the book, the reader grows to dislike him more as the story continues.
The plot is sequenced in chronologically. It helped keep the events in order, and allows for the reader to keep up with what was happening. The book held my attention most of the time. At times the book slowed down , but it would pick up quickly. The book took a turn when John got in trouble with the law. “The natives who raided us turned out to be the island's entire police force” (Robison 118). As soon as this twist took place, it immediately grabs your attention. The whole book is a learning experience. It allows you to learn what people on the Autism spectrum think of the world, and it allows you to see what it’s like to be considered a deviant person and an outcast. It lets you see how detrimental the way people with Asperger’s are treated as children impact them for the rest of their lives. Asperger's was not as well known when John was a child as it is now, which allows you to see a different time period. I really enjoyed learning about all of this while reading the book.
John Elder had a hard life and it’s great that he was able to write a book about it. It allows the rest of the world to see the life he lived growing up and for him to finally feel understood. The book gave him a chance to explain everything the people around him simply did not understand. I would recommend this book to everyone. I believe people with Asperger’s may enjoy this book too because it makes them feel like they aren't alone.
When autobiographies by Aspergians started to appear in publication, I snapped them up and read them eagerly. One of the very first was Temple Grandin's " Thinking In Pictures ." She became widely known when the famous neurologist and author, Oliver Sacks, wrote about her in his bestselling book " An Anthropologist On Mars ." I recommend both of these books highly.
Autobiographies are great, but there is nothing like the power of fiction to get a reader deeply inside the mind of another human being! There are two outstanding works of fiction that I am familiar with that are told from the perspective of someone on the high end of the autism spectrum: " The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time " by Mark Haddon, and " The Speed of Dark " by Elizabeth Moon. I also recommend both of these books highly.
A few weeks ago, I stopped to gaze on the many titles that Amazon was recommending to me, based on the titles I've purchased from them or reviewed on their site. I was delighted to see there was a new Aspergian autobiography on the market: John Elder Robison's " Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's ." I ordered it immediately. Yesterday, I picked up the book after breakfast and was surprised to find that I had completely finished it by later that same afternoon.
What a delightful, and often humorous, book this was! The book is mainly a collection of stories from the Robison's unusual life. The writing is surprisingly fresh, honest, and emotionally open. The stories are full of amazingly dysfunctional parents, geeky pranks, and weird happenings. Though them, and many inward-looking passages found throughout the book, Robison gives us keen insight into the mind and thinking processes of a high-functioning person with Asperger's Syndrome, aptly named by Robison throughout this work as Aspergians.
Other reviewers have covered well what is included in these stories and how Robison's life and this book relates to his younger brother's bestselling book and major motion picture " Running With Scissors ," so I won't cover those aspects here.
What I do want to add that as is wholly new, is that this book is a great companion-piece to " The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science " by Norman Doidge. This absolutely fascinating new book gives an easily readable, enjoyable, and thought-provoking nonprofessional overview of the new science of neuroplasticity--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections over the life span. This is what Robison was able to do--completely by himself, without professional intervention. As you read this book, you'll be able to see how Robison was able to rewire his brain, and eventually to make himself more normal.
Robison, the adult accomplished 40-year-old author who writes this book, no longer possesses the same brain wiring problems that his younger self had to deal with. That is why this book can be told with such a high degree of emotional openness and understanding. Toward the end of the book, Robison talks with great understanding briefly about the new science of neuroplasticity and how he is confident that he has been able to slowly rewire his brain over the last two decades of his life.
This is what is wonderful about this book. For me, it was not so much a good book about Aspergians, but it was a fascinating tale about an Aspergian who was able to rewire his brain successfully to respond more normally to life.
If this aspect of Robison's autobiography interests you, then by all means, read " The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science ." There you will find numerous real-life stories about people, with a wide range of disabilities, who were able to achieve successfully what seemed--until only very recently--an impossible task: changing their brains and conquering their disabilities. Norman Doidge's neuroplasticity book gets my unqualified highest recommendation. It will change the way you look at the world and you will be able to understand, on an easy scientific level, what Robison was able to do to his Aspergian brain over the last two decades.
So, what do I feel about Robison's book in general? Well, it was easy and pleasant to read and well worth the time and effort. There are perhaps better books that take you deeper into the mind of an Aspergian. But no book out there shows you a better real-life example of the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections over the life span. I'd give it three stars for the storytelling, three stars for the writing, three stars for the insight it brings to bear on Asperger's Syndrome, but four stars on what it brings to bear on the new science of neuroplasticity, and for me, that last one out weighs all the rest.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2023
What I liked about this book was the observations he makes about his own behavioural responses to situations, such as detailing his reactions to being told that someone was killed in an accident. Unlike "neuro-typical" people who have learnt regular social conventions from a young age, and respond to such announcements with expressions of sorrow, Robison reacts with inappropriate expressions of relief, such as smiling that he wasn't the one killed. It is reasonable, but sad, that "normal" people would misunderstand these expressions, and would accuse Robison of being "weird" or "uncaring". Sadly Robison suffers blows to his self-esteem as a result of the numerous comments and criticisms he endures. It shows remarkable resilience of character that Robison survives as well as he does.
Robison does give examples of positive life events and supportive people who were affirming of his uniqueness. The learning (when Robison is in his forties) that he has a condition that is named, with a cluster of features that are relatively consistent across people with Autism Spectrum Disorder, which Asperger's syndrome is now considered to be the milder form of.
The real highlights for me of this book include the breathtaking detail of his describing what it is like to be the lighting engineer when you have an enormous fired up crowd in an auditorium, and you literally have the heart and soul, and fate of this heaving "organism" (his words) in your hand. This for me was true literature-- so beautifully described. I was there with Robison-- standing at that lighting console, my heart in mouth, praying that his lighting designs would work. Other passages, such as when he describes standing with his son at a railway line, awaiting the ascent of a diesel engine. He does not overdo the descriptions, the passages are action-based, but the movement and noise is well conveyed. I wonder if possessing an "Aspie's" attention to detail, Robison is able to notice details the "normal" person dismisses unconsciously, and hence has difficulty recalling.
I struggle to detail any aspect of this book that I did not like. The prose was well constructed, without lengthy passages of detail that could have been difficult to wade through. He effectively uses internal dialogue to convey the uncertainty and negative self-talk that we all use to a lesser or greater extent, but is especially poignant in Robison's case. Possibly my enjoyment of this book was enhanced by having read his brother's earlier book "Running with scissors". I still feel however, that I would be singing this book's praises, even so. I will be recommending this book to anyone who has an interest in the human condition.
I just feel he missed a huge opportunity to get a little more analytical and less anecdotal (or at least, less dialogue driven).
I think the emphasis on weighty dialogue is what causes this imbalance for me; I would have liked description more than 'I said/he said', because the human power of recall is so pitiful that almost all the dialogue in any memoir is likely to be very made up. If you're going to make something up, write a novel. : ) I am not saying the incidents are fabricated, just the dialogue, because I can remember incidents from when I was still in my pram being pushed about by my mother but I definitely have no clue what my mother said to whom.
Even a few months ago, we can't recall those details. And it doesn't usually matter, except that I am deeply interested in Asperger's so I'd like it as accurate as possible.
If a book is aimed at helping others understand Asperger's, I'd like to see it more detailed, less subjective, and more discussion around how the Asperger's person processes things, compared to non-Asperger's. Having said all that, it's still a jolly good read and a good aid to understanding how it feels to have Asperger's.
Früher dachte man sich, man sei eben einzigartig und lernte eben damit zu leben, (ja sogar sich zu zwingen, den Leuten mal in die Augen zu sehen, ächts) aber heute finde ich es schön Leute mit ähnlichen Lebensereignissen gefunden zu haben: John Elder Robison ist einer von Ihnen und man findet sich selbst leicht wieder, wenn man seine Memoiren ließt.
Für Nicht-Aspies oder Leute mit Kindern die diese Art Informationen zu verarbeiten (denn es ist KEINE KRANKHEIT) sicher auch ein nützliches Buch. Wie die deutsche Übersetzung ist, kann ich nicht sagen, aber im Original ist es mal schön mal schrecklich wie oft man sich dort wiederfindet. Ich konnte gar nicht aufhören zu lesen...
Zitat: "It took a long while for me to get to this place, to lern who I am. My days of hiding in the corner or crawling under a rock are over. I am proud to be an Aspergian."














