Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

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Crown, Sep 25, 2007 - Psychology - 320 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “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.

 

Contents

A Permanent Playmate
19
Empathy
29
A Trickster Is Born
35
6
51
Assembly Required
59
The Dogs Begin to Fear
69
Collecting the Trash
95
The Flaming Washtub
101
A Visit from Management
181
Logic vs Small Talk
189
Becoming Normal
207
Get a Bear Cub
219
A Diagnosis at Forty
233
Montagoonians
241
Units One Through Three
247
Married Life
253

The Big Time
125
The First Smoking Guitar
133
The Ferry to Detroit
143
One with the Machine
151
Rock and Roll All Night
155
A Real Job
171
Winning at Basketball
259
My Life as a Train
265
Epilogue
273
Acknowledgments
283
Reading and Resources
285
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

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.

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