I think this might actually be a bit unfair on the author - he said the protagonist in the book was inspired by 2 people he knew who didn't have any kind of disability, and he said he regrets that the term "Asperger's" appears on the front of the book (Christopher doesn't actually specify what his issue actually is at any point during the novel).
Depends on if the regret is pre- or post-backlash for me to let up on him, frankly =/ Anyone can tell a story when they're in hot water, and the story he told before that hot water has been pretty much universally identified as being about autism (especially given that, you know, in that same blog post he states that he
did read articles and such about autistic people while working on his writing). Doesn't really help that he wrote his other book on parapsychology (hypochondria), either, or that he made the admission that he knew nothing about Asperger's... what, 6 years post-publication? Wooooooow. Also the "I slightly regret having that name on the cover." "Slightly." He says he thoroughly regrets having put that name on the cover now--and why is that? Because people keep on asking him to come speak out for Autistic rights, and all he wanted to do was write books about disabilities and stuff.
I dunno, man.
Have a link.
I hope you'll take it as a compliment that you do very well, Vector. I wouldn't have guessed. I've found you a bit eccentric, but nothing more. I thought your interest in the subject was more akin to mine.
Ah, thank you! I'll have to admit that my main coping mechanism has been "ignore everything but words and a few key gestures," so I've become pretty adept at speaking on the internet and so on. In person... haha. I've been found out quite a few times. At this point, I think the main indicators are the "regulating questions" and frequent inability to come up with comprehensible English sentences when I'm attempting to express myself. Those are the obvious ones. The slightly less-obvious ones have to do with routine, sensory stuff, and so on--but you usually don't notice things like "I can't wear fabric made of certain materials" or "I wear medium-height heels because it's more comfortable for my shortened Achilles tendons" when you're walking around the street, now do you? Well, and the obsessive collection of information on certain subjects, but the subjects have been varied enough and my memory good enough that people don't really notice that
When I'm having trouble in general, though, it's painfully obvious. Oh, well. I've really been doing a lot better this semester than I ever had before.