Look Me in the Eye tells of a child’s heartbreaking desperation to connect with others, and his struggle to pass as ‘normal’ - a struggles that would continue into adulthood.
By the time he was a teenager, John Elder Robison’s odd habits had earned him the label ‘social deviant’. No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent the evenings drinking. It was not until he was forty that Robison was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, transforming the way he saw himself - and the world.
Look Me in the Eye is Robison’s moving and blackly funny story of growing up with Asperger’s syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn’t even exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes us inside the head of a boy regarded as ‘defective’. He also provides a fascinating angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents - the boy who would grow up to write Running with Scissors. Above all, you’ll marvel at the way Robison’s overcame the restrictions of Asperger’s to gain the connection he always craved: as a husband and father.
