Writer and autism grandmother Carolyn See reviewed Charlotte Moore’s George and Sam in the December 8th Washington Post. Noting that British novelist and autism father Nick Hornby writes in the introduction that “this might be the only book you need to read,” See writes:
Charlotte Moore has not one but two autistic kids. She also has a non-autistic son, who has provided her with a convenient means of comparison. She is a professional writer, extremely competent, methodical and intelligent. Between her two boys, she has had occasion to try almost every treatment or diet or therapy that may alleviate the disorder. She provides a useful list of organizations at the back of the book and during her narrative describes a goodly portion of the sometimes harrowing, sometimes amusing behavior of autistic children — what the often bewildered parents of the newly diagnosed may fairly expect in the future.
But Moore gives readers only half the information they need. She explains the symptoms that nervous parents should look out for, describes what they should do to care for these youngsters. (She stops at puberty.) She tells us what to do; she just doesn’t tell us how to do it. For close to 300 pages, she becomes more austere and self-sacrificing, more and more saintly, until by the end — I’m sorry, Nick Hornby! — I wanted to give her a rude shove.
To find out why See wishes to give Moore that “rude shove” (and why there might be some other books about autism you might need to read……), go here to read ‘An Extreme Aloneness’.
See wrote about her autistic grandson, George, in an article in the September/October 2004 AARP magazine, George’s Place.
I don’t like to talk about what all of [George's therapy] costs: the school district and regional center split the cost of behavior therapy; health insurance covers some medical services. George’s extended family picks up all the rest, which runs into thousands of dollars. I won’t talk about the time all of this takes to arrange. Or the heartbreak, all over again for all of us, when George bursts into scalding tears and cannot tell anyone what’s wrong with him. I can’t talk anymore about what my daughter and her husband have gone through. It should be enough—it has to be enough—that George is happy.
Still, George is my delight. When it’s my night to baby-sit, he strides in dressed to the nines, wearing a stylish backpack. He allows me a fleeting smile, puts up with being hugged, and lopes over to his books and blocks. He’s beautiful. He’s hard to get. He’s delicious.
See also notes that George is “some of the best company in the world.” And a book in which such a boy starred would certainly be one I will need to read.
Thanks, Kev! How “our” experiences as parents of autistic kids gets portrayed means so much—–at any rate, See’s review shows how much support there already is for her book.
I think Ms See said some good things:
“There is no cure and Moore herself, to my knowledge, is the person who originally put to rest the consoling fiction that there might be a normal child hiding behind a mask of off-putting symptoms. Autists are autists “through and through,” she insists.”
But as MON-NOS says, on the whole I don’t think she got the point of the book, which was never meant to be a how-to manual but a look at her two boys and she certainly didn’t get Charlotte Moore herself. She regularly used to write for The Guardian and was a damned good writer, which continued into this book. She was pragmatic in the book and realistic but this (to me) could by no means be thought of as ’superbly solitary and heroic.’
The reviewer seems to want (sorry) an Americanised story where we here all the gossip about Moore’s ex-husband, or more about her. She forgot the book was called ‘George and Sam’, not ‘George, Sam and me’ or ‘What I did to help George and Sam’.
Personally, I loved the book. Its up there with Donna Williams ‘Nobody Nowhere’ and Sue’s ‘Making Peace…’
The book has gotten a lot of attention certainly in the UK—-I’ve been interested in See’s own writings prior to reading Moore’s, and hence noted her review. Yes, that sentence caught my eye, too.
A book that raises such reactions must be worth a read. I may get it for myself. Christmas present, I’ll call it. I’m sure her life is quite different from mine, as mine is different from Mom-nos or Kristina’s, but it always interests me to see how people cope with life and autism.
Interesting. See’s questions didn’t resonate with me, and the book didn’t leave me with a single one of them. I think it’s difficult to have very specific expectations about a memoir. Moore was writing about her own experience, and if she didn’t address the issues that See wishes she did (and, which I can understand would be interesting to read about), it may be because they were not the most important parts of her story, as she experienced it.
There’s also a sentence in See’s review that I found unsettling:
So why did I end up wanting to give this laudable lady a rude shove? Because Moore knows, twice as well as I do, that precisely because autistic kids don’t much notice or care about the outside world, autism actually “happens” to the sentient human beings around them.
Perhaps I’m misreading what she’s written here, but it strikes me as though the subtext suggests that “autistic kids” are not “sentient human beings.”
Only have read part of it—I like the humor and hilarity; I do think See is asking some good questions.
Wow. I’m really surprised. I loved George and Sam – it’s one of my top three autism memoirs. Have you read it, Kristina?