Be Different Adventures of a Free-range Aspergian By John Elder Robison

LOOK ME IN THE EYE tells of a child's heartbreaking desperation to connect with others, and his struggle to pass as 'normal' -- a struggle that would continue into adulthood. By the time he was a teenager, John Elder Robison's odd habits -- such as a tendency to obsessively dismantle radios and dig five-foot holes (and stick his little brother in them) -- had earned him the label 'social deviant'. No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent the evenings drinking. Small wonder Robison gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on. It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told Robison he had the form of autism called Asperger's syndrome, transforming the way Robison saw himself -- and the world. LOOK ME IN THE EYE is Robison's moving and blackly funny story of growing up with Asperger's syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn't even exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes us inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as defective and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people's given names (he calls his wife Unit Two). He also provides a fascinating angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents -- the boy who would grow up to write RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. Above all, you'll marvel at the way Robison overcame the restrictions of Asperger's to gain the connection he always craved: as a husband and father.

Paperback, 2011, 284 pages, as new condition

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