A book describing the experiences of a mother raising three sons, two of whom are autistic and have severe learning difficulties.

This is autism from the carer/parent's point of view, with occasional, pragmatic speculation on the boys' state of mind. Moore states that she doesn't intend to horrify with her depictions of everyday life, and she certainly has an agenda of educating and providing advice. Where she steps outside the narrative of her own experiences to reflect, her remarks come across as well-considered and sensible. She is particularly convincing on the unsuitability of integrated schooling for autistic children. She also makes the interesting point that autistic children's physical attractiveness may give a false impression of their capacity to behave normally. Unfortunately, Moore's daily life does sound pretty unpleasant if not downright horrific, and my strongest impression is of the boys' unwitting capacity to subvert domestic routines into ceaseless cleanup and disaster mitigation.

This was a compulsively easy read, but from my point of view a rather ghoulish one, and for that reason I shan't give it a rating. What I mainly got out of it was a great sense of relief that I don't have children and I don't have to look after anyone with a severe disability.

http://nhw.livejournal.com/896760.htm...

This is a brilliant book about living with autism in your family. I found myself experiencing painful shocks of recognition every few pages, from the experience of the more “neurotypical” sibling, to the necessity of keeping important things (such as sugar and toothpaste) locked up, to the unintentional unkindnesses of friends and relatives. Our two girls are very different from Moore’s two boys, and all four are of course very different from each other – neither of ours can talk, while both of hers can; she has had more success with toilet training than we have; her boys apparently get along well with each other, while our four-year-old U is somewhat frightened of her ten-year-old sister B (who normally blithely ignores U, but has occasionally pulled her hair). Also, of course, she has managed to keep both of hers at home so far, whereas we are now expecting B to move out to full-time residential care in the next couple of months. Another extremely important difference is that my wife and I are still together. (Incidentally, I also realized that I know Moore’s father through liberal politics.) There are many good lines in the book, but I’ll just take this one from near the end as a good summary of the common ground I found with her:

"These mysterious, impossible, enchanting beings will always be among us, unwitting yardsticks for our own moral behaviour, uncomprehending challengers of our definition of what it means to be human."

You couldn’t take this book as an essential medical text on autism. Nick Hornby in his introduction makes parallels with Wild Swans and Claire Tomalin’s life of Pepys, but I think that’s a mistake: both of those are deeply factual books which we should take as serious academic contributions to the histories of China and of seventeenth-century England. (For instance, Moore writes about experiments with diet as a way of improving her children’s condition, but her account should be taken as a personal history rather than a medical recommendation; we’ve tried that and it made no difference apart from making B grumpy because there was no cheese.) I think a better parallel is with Rebecca West’s amazing Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, which is misleading and possibly even dangerous if taken as a factual history of Yugoslavia, but if read correctly as a human response to the experience of the Balkans is one of the great books of the twentieth century. Anyway, this is a great account of an important part of my world by someone who shares it. ( )

One of those books was George and Sam by journalist Charlotte Moore. I mentioned this in a thread somewhere here the day I read it, but it's her account of her life as - now - a single parent of three boys, the eldest two of whom are both autistic. It's warm, funny, poignant and phenomenonally informative. It pulls no punches, offers no promises of magic cures, and doesn't pretend to be tell you about anyone other than George and Sam, but it's hugely compelling. Highly recommended to anyone even slightly interested in learning a little bit more about autism.
Hornby's ringing endorsement of the book (he's the parent of an autistic son himself) was what made me want to read this, and I'm glad I did - it's leapt straight to the top of the list of books I will recommend anyone interested in autism should read. ( )