Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism

Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. Paul Collins. Bloomsbury House. New York. 2004

Reviewed by Dorothy Coakley, Patron




I fly back and forth from Port Townsend to San Francisco about once a month. Sometimes I pick up a book from the PT library for the journey. If I forget, I get one from a vendor at SEATAC. All of the books are short enough to be read on one flight but interesting enough to take away the tedium of travel.

Paul Collins is an articulate author, researcher and reviewer who happens to have an autistic son named Morgan. The child can read, spell, and do arithmetic, but lives in a world of his own. Unable to answer to his own name, Morgan is a riddle to his own parents and to those around him.

As Morgan's dad struggles to communicate with the boy, he also researches autism in general. His studies include "Peter the Wild Boy, (an early autistic savant), Temple Grandin, the autistic animal researcher, and a visit to the Autism Center at the University of Washington which was "funded by an unnamed Microsoft executive."

Paul Collins has given us a journey into the joys and stresses of parenthood, the meaning of "normal behavior"and a new understanding of the nature of autism. All of this is a short, lively book that can be read on a two hour journey. Put it into your flight bag.

Dorothy Coakley (Port Townsend/Berkeley)