Autism Chick Lit: Talking about Autism in Daniel Isn’t Talking (2)

In a previous post, I wrote:

So, it seems, people will be talking about Daniel Isn’t Talking a lot and then some in the near future. Since, as Leimbach notes on her website, Daniel Isn’t Talking is a “novel involving autism,” it is reasonable to conclude that the novel’s representation of autism—of an autistic child—may affect what many moviegoers—what the general public—thinks about autism.

How, then, is autism—is an autistic child—portrayed in Daniel Isn’t Talking?

Daniel’s being autistic is indicated by his “odd” behaviors prior to treatments educational and biomedical, after which he is shown to acquire speech and play and social skills. But a fuller portrait of what it is to be autistic is not presented. While Daniel Isn’t Talking is a “novel involving autism,” Daniel is not the main character in the book—this would be his mother, Melanie. In the novel’s earlier chapters, Melanie struggles to figure out “what is wrong” with Daniel, who hangs on to one toy Thomas train (p. 9), endlessly flushes the toilet “which he will only play with like a toy but will not consider sitting on” (p. 18), licks a sunbeam shining on the wall (p. 41), tantrums in a supermarket (p. 80).

After diagnosis (p. 52), sessions with a skillful play therapist, the Irish Andy whose eldest brother was severely autistic (p. 128, 215), an array of biomedical treatments (p. 172), and endless devotion to the point that Melanie pawns her jewelry and furniture (p. 173), Daniel’s progress is noted:

Today is a little exhausting. Daniel hops all over the furniture, running into the walls on purpose, not talking much. He visits me as I make his special muffins in the kitchen, colliding into me like a chuckling tornado. I am pleased when he grows dizzy and has to sit down. Normal, I tell myself. Stop fretting. He comes to me, his lips pursed like two sides of a peeled banana, givine me what looks like a monkey kiss. “I love you,” I tell him.

“I love you,” he says. Is he repeating what I say as an echo, the way a parrot might. Or does he mean it?

“Why do you love me?” I ask him. An inane question no child can answer.

“You like trains,” he says. Does he have the pronouns correct? Or does he mean that he likes trains?

I point to my chest. “Me?” I ask. My heart lights up as he nods. (pp. 248-249; see also p. 245)

This passage, near the end of Leimbach‘s novel, is typical in its perspective: We are presented with what Daniel says, with his talking, but it is his mother Melanie’s interpretation of his words that the reader is given. And, indeed, rather than saying that Daniel Isn’t Talking is a novel about autism, a novel (as the book jacket notes) of a “family in crisis,” it is very much an autism mother’s novel. And, indeed, a novel about motherhood like Jennifer Weiner’s Little Earthquakes.

That is, Daniel Isn’t Talking portrays the response and psychology of a mother whose child is diagnosed with autism, and who struggles and triumphs to help him learn and grow. It is a story more than familiar to me as another autism mother and as a reader of books such as Beth Kephart’s A Slant of Sun: One Child’s Courage and of Catherine Maurice’s Let Me Hear Your Voice: One Family’s Triumph Over Autism.

While Daniel Isn’t Talking is a novel—a work of fiction—much of its narrative and of the experiences that Leimbach’s protagonist, Melanie, endures, are highly similar to the narrative and the types of experiences that Kephart, Maurice, and many other autism mothers have written about: A young mother notes “something” about her child; this “something” soon becomes “something is wrong.” There are terrible tantrums, staring and unsympathetic strangers, curious behaviors (the green hat that Kephart’s son Jeremy insisted on wearing, to bed and in the bathtub). There is the magical moment when the mother finds the treatment that works and the equally magical therapists who appear nonchalantly at one’s door and then, in effect, save one’s child (ABA and Bridget Taylor—now the director of the Alpine School in New Jersey—in Maurice’s book). There is the overly devoted mother researching, researching, researching like the mother portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the movie Lorenzo’s Oil who finds all manner of treatments—special diets, nutritrional supplements—-that vastly improve her child’s condition, to the point, even, that the child not only “seems” normal but simply is.

While most non-fiction autism mother books—as those by Kephart, Maurice, and Clara Claiborne Park (The Siege: A Family’s Journey into the World of an Autistic Child and Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism)—end their narratives by noting the child’s accomplishments and what they have learned from their efforts, Melanie in Daniel Isn’t Talking also gains a serious new love interest in the person of Daniel’s one and only therapist, Andy. These are the last two paragraphs of the novel:

“Melanie,” he says softly. “Take your time. I’m here. I’m just waiting for you. I’m not going anywhere.”

And so I take my time. Because there is no need to hurry; and anyway, I believe him. (p. 275)

Melanie believes Andy (of the rolled cigarettes and torn jeans that she fits) when he tells her that she will “one day stop counting” how many words Daniel puts together (p. 219); and that autism is a “treatable condition”: Daniel may never be “normal,” and Melanie comes to accept this thanks to Andy who “is honest. He always tells me the truth” (p. 219).

Leaving aside the ethical issues of becoming involved with one’s autistic child’s therapist (as noted by Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick in The trouble with autism-lit), I would note that Melanie’s having found a seemingly perfect mate in Andy (especially in contrast to her “true Brit” husband, Stephen Marsh, who leaves her for his former girlfriend) makes it clear to me that Daniel Isn’t Talking is more about an autism mother than an autistic child. It is, if I may coin the expression, “autism chick lit,” in which (in a definition provided by ChickLitBooks.com):

There is usually a personal, light, and humorous tone to the books. Sometimes they are written in first-person narrative; other time they are written from multiple viewpoints. The plots usually consist of women experiencing usual life issues, such as love, marriage, dating, relationships, friendships, roommates, corporate environments, weight issues, addiction, and much more.

So how does that differ from regular women’s fiction, you might be wondering? Well, it’s all in the tone. Chick lit is told in a more confiding, personal tone. It’s like having a best friend tell you about her life. Or watching various characters go through things that you have gone through yourself, or witnessed others going through. Humor is a strong point in chick lit, too.

Or, as novelist Jennifer Weiner puts it,

On the one hand, the chick lit label is sexist, dismissive, and comes with the built-in implication that what you’ve written is a piece of beach-trash fluff with as much heft and heart as a mouthful of pink cotton candy. On the other hand, I know that the term gives publishers and, more importantly, booksellers and readers, a quick and easy shorthand with which to refer to books that feature smart, funny, struggling young female protagonists.

And, on the other other hand, if people in search of “beach or poolside reading” learn a little about autism along the way, that is not a bad thing—except that one might wish for more about autistic Daniel and the sometimes irksome yet joyous details of life with autism.

Melanie in Daniel Isn’t Talking does come across as that “best friend [telling] you about her life,” her life with an autistic son, a precocious daughter, an unfaithful and stiff husband, a handsome guy (the Irish play therapist), good-hearted Italian bakers who feed her cannoli and ravioli gratis. She is a good person; she is kindly and caring; she cooks; she loves her children; she tells the husband who left her “‘If something had happened to you, Stephen, if something had happened to you instead of Daniel, I want you to know that I would have fought just as hard’” (p. 272). She is the heroine next door.

She is a role, indeed, for Julia Roberts.

But who will be Daniel?