The Curious Incident of The Unexpectedly Awesome Book

Okay, I have an autistic daughter, caveat emptor and all that hoo-haw.

But I was reluctant to read this book (in part because I failed to pay attention when Frau Lobster recommended it). Most people, to the extent they think about autism at all think:

Rainman.
Einstein was autistic.
That just means she's smart.
It's mercury from her MMR shot.
It's a food allergy.
She has too much yeast in her intestines.
Just give her this amino-acid supplement I get from the coop.

And so on.

They don't just think these asinine thoughts, they say them out loud. She's been tested for heavy metals, food allergies, we tried the Nysatatin, we've tried diets, she's had a chromosome screen to rule out Fragile X, and so on and so forth.

And Rainman was not an autistic character in the strict sense: Hoffman's character was more an Aspberger's case, which is the same spectrum, different disorder. If that confuses you, think about having a headache in your foot or colon cancer in your elbow. If it was in your foot or elbow it would not be labeled 'head' or 'colon,' right?

I was afraid the 'Curious Incident' would be like Rainman for people who can read.

Especially since the LOC info and whatnot indicates the kiddo is gifted at math. My Mom's next door neighbor, when the subject (thankfully rarely) comes up, asks what my daughter's special talent is. Like autism automatically comes with one. He talks aobut how the Pentagon has rooms full of them, like they're tropical fish or cutting-edge computers.

But Christopher is not only a very human character, his shit washes with the non-fiction I've read about and by autistics. Plus, it's a gripping read, and as a father who throws up his hands in despair, it gives me some hypothetical 'other side' views I hadn't thought of. I thought one of Craig Clevenger's accomplishments with 'The Contortionist's Handbook' was to write a credible savant character on the autistic spectrum, but it's small beer by comparison. And Christopher isn't really a savant, he's just fixated on a couple of subjects enough to do better than his 'normal' peers. Also, this book takes the 'less than ideal parents' rather than the 'worst possible parents' and is the more real to me for it. At least insofar as I'm a parent.

Still, it's a book I wish I could force on people. I'd rank it easily with 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' and 'The End of Alice' in terms of contemporary books that do what literature is supposed to do (make you think and feel things you wouldn't otherwise).