Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
by John Elder Robison
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Book Summary Information
Author: John Elder RobisonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-09
ISBN: 0307396185
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Broadway
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Book Reviews of Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
Book Review: Asperger's is More than What Meets the Eye
Summary: 5 Stars
You gotta love the cover of the paperback edition of LOOK ME IN THE EYE: MY LIFE WITH ASPERGER'S. It features a photo of a geeky-eared boy, his eyes and mouth scrunched shut in a "you-can't-make-me" way. It's the reason I picked up the book.
Author John Elder Robison has Asperger's. He didn't graduate from high school, didn't go to college, but he did design "fire-breathing" guitars for KISS, solve problems as an electrical engineer, marry twice, and start a business called J E Robinson Service that repairs and restores Rolls-Royces, Land Rovers, and Mercedes cars. He's successful. Of course, Robinson learned a lot to enable himself to get where he is now, most importantly to work with his strengths and to practice introspection. (I think he would admit he's isn't typical of someone who has Asperger's; no one is typical.)
Robinson talks about the thing he's always had for machines:
"Many people with Asperger's have an affinity for machines. Sometimes I think I can relate better to a good machine than any kind of person. I've thought about why that is, and I've come up with a few ideas. One thought is that I control the machines. We don't interact as equals. No matter how big the machine, I am in charge. Machines don't talk back. They are predictable. They don't trick me, and they're never mean.
"I have a lot of trouble reading other people. I am not very good at looking at people and knowing whether they like me, or they're mad, or they're just waiting for me to say something. I don't have problems like that with machines."
He also talks about "Looking people in the eye":
"I was well into my teenage years before I figured out that I wasn't a killer, or worse. By then, I knew I wasn't being shifty or evasive when I failed to meet someone's gaze, and I had started to wonder why so many adults equated that behavior with shiftiness and evasiveness. Also, by then I had met shifty and scummy people who did look me in the eye, making me think the people who complained about me were hypocrites.
"To this day, when I speak, I find visual input to be distracting. When I was younger, if I saw something interesting I might begin to watch it and stop speaking entirely. As a grown-up, I don't usually come to a complete stop, but I may still pause if something catches my eye. That's why I usually look somewhere neutral--at the ground or off into the distance--when I'm talking to someone. Because speaking while watching things has always been difficult for me, learning to drive a car and talk at the same time was tough one, but I mastered it.
"And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don't really understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs."
I'm glad I read this book, because it gave me some understanding about people like Robinson, whom I consider rude, clueless, or just plain weird. I'd like to think this understanding will help me think before I judge.
Note: John Elder Robison is Augusten Burroughs' (RUNNING WITH SCISSORS) older brother.
Summary of Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
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.
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