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Reasonable People: a Memoir of Autism and Adoption
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“Articulate
and Passionate, Savarese's intricately crafted memoir
of his son's early years challenges us all to embrace
diversity, to triumph over adversity, and to become
not just reasonable people--but a reasonable society."
--Morton Ann Gernsbacher,
Ph.D., Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic Bartlett
Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison; President
of the Association of Psychological Science
“Reasonable
People is a work of righteous fury, a keenly written
memoir and a sustained polemic about autism. It is a literary
investigation that swarms with life—I couldn’t
put it down—and to read it is to be changed by its
deeply felt suffering, its stubborn joy.”
--Edward Hirsch, author
of Poet’s Choice and President of the John
Simon Guggenheim Foundation
“Reasonable
People is at once an extraordinary story of one boy’s
complex emergence into language and connection, and an
urgent manifesto for every human being’s right to
self-determination and love. ‘I try to get free
you try’ writes DJ Savarese. With poetry, humor,
and a fierce intelligence as deep as it is wide, Ralph
Savarese—together with his son—shows us how.”
--Elizabeth Graver,
author of The Honey Thief and Awake
“Through the
methodical, careful teaching of the meaning of language,
DJ, a non-verbal person with autism, was able to successfully
communicate his shocking family history. This book will
be exceedingly valuable for all parents and teachers who
are working with non-verbal individuals.”
--Temple Grandin,
author of Thinking in Pictures
“This is a
book about...transformative love....It is a critique of
who we are, and a promise of who we might be, and it is
written with both passion and eloquence."
--Andrew Solomon,
author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
and winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction.
As well as being
an engaging memoir, Reasonable People' enriches
our understanding of autism. I hope, and expect, that
Reasonable People may do for autism what Michael Berube's
Life As We Know It did for Down syndrome. Together
these parental memoirs encourage the inclusion in public
schools and public life of children who were once thought
not to belong there. The value of such books is immeasurable,
and to write a good one requires a combination of narrative
and descriptive skill, good judgment, compassion, and
ruthless self-analysis. Reasonable People has
all the necessary features. It is a remarkable achievement."
--G. Thomas Couser,
author of Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability,
and Life Writing
“Reasonable
People is the story of a homemade disability rights
movement, one that defies many contemporary institutional
and social service expectations about autistic children.
This is also a book with a historian’s care for
facts and a poet’s concern with emotional candor.
It belongs on the shelf with the best work in disability
history and memoir.”
--Stephen Kuusisto,
author of Planet of the Blind and Co-director
of the Disability Studies Program, The Ohio State University
“Reasonable
People is the story of a passionate family and their
journey with and of their adoptive son DJ as he dances
with the shadows of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder whilst
trying to tame the wildness of mind and emotion which
won't listen fluently to each other and the blessing and
curse of a dramatically divided identity.
Struggling to develop comprehensible interpretive language
until late childhood, and often being simultaneously emotionally
and behaviorally 'feral', I can deeply relate to DJ's
struggles.
As someone for whom typing gave me my own first look at
an intelligent, deep and caring person which testing and
observation hadn't found, I stand by and stand up for
the celebration of typing which allowed DJ to channel
his own functionally non-verbal chaos into a ray of hope
that is typed language. Here, he could demonstrate a wholeness
of self, a passionate and compassionate self and artistic
self, which could progressively allow him to work through
the labyrinth of divided identity, deal with his abusive
and traumatic past, his transition into adoption and the
foreignness of a caring and committed family and beyond
to the goal of an empowered and empowering life as a young
adult.
Ralph Savarese's book is only one story of trauma, adoption
and of autism, each of which will have many faces, many
manifestations. But it is an important one as a contribution
to the diversity of literature on the combination of these
three and maintains an open minded, humanistic and holistic
view throughout. DJ's final chapter is a wonderful addition
to the growing genre of works by those with autism whose
typing is as valid and equal a form of communication as
signing is to many in the deaf community.”
--Donna Williams, Dip
Ed, BA Hons
Autistic author of nine books including the number one
international bestsellers, Nobody Nowhere and Somebody
Somewhere
“This is the
crucial book, a gem of clarity and hope for anyone who
wishes to understand the experience of subjectivity in
autism. As the father writes about his son's traumatic
history in this very book, his son is listening. This
book shows us how an entry into language, which finally
gives DJ his own story, also imposes traumatic memories,
nightmares and anguished fears. Mr. Savarese shows us
the place where language itself is traumatizing, breaking
into the logic of the body's responses and imposing another,
intergenerational logic. As DJ learns a world of words
through his mother's steely dedication to provide him
an education, he tunes into his father's signifiers, emerging
from his isolation in a way that most would predict would
be impossible. As a clinician who works with children,
I am humbled by the scope of a single family's love and
its effect on their child's voice in the world.”
--Annie Rogers, Ph.D.,
author of A Shining Affliction and The Unsayable:
The Hidden Language of Trauma
“I loved the
book, although it really was painful to read about DJ’s
life in foster care. The awesome dedication of Emily and
Ralph transformed a hurt, isolated, non-verbal, autistic
boy into a wonderful advocate for facilitated communication
and inclusion in education and the community.”
--Sue Rubin, screenwriter
and star of the Academy Award finalist for short documentaries,
Autism Is A World
“In this comprehensive,
charming book about the author’s adopted autistic
child, DJ, Savarese covers a wide swath of literary, socio-cultural,
educational, and psychological influences on the rearing
of a challenging, often unruly, mute young child. The
reader is intriguingly led by the hand through the trials
and triumphs of parents finding their way to engage their
child, and seeking the family and educational services
appropriate to his condition. We learn about DJ’s
horrific past with his biological parents and foster caretakers.
Gratefully we read of how a youth, together with his dedicated,
nurturing parents, learns to communicate with his adoptive
family in any way he can, stemming the often inexorable
tide of anguish and despair that children like DJ experience.
An inspiring, informative read.”
--Karen Zelan, Ph.D.,
author of Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs
with Autistic Children
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