Soon Will Come the Light: A View from Inside the Autism Puzzle

Rating:
Summary: Wish you could walk in your child with autism's shoes?
Review: "You can't know a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins," is the best quote I can come up with to sum up the impact of "Soon Will Come the Light".

Thomas McKean has presented in this book the one thing that I always wished for, but few books could offer---the ability to walk in my children with autism's shoes for a while and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of what their world looks and feels like.

McKean's writing reveals loving, gentle, brilliant man with autism, and his book is a stereotype buster. He shows us that people with autism have worth and wisdom to share with the world. He teaches us both through his inspiring gifts as a poet, and with his "no holds barred" personal thoughts on many of the current intervention trends in autism, such as auditory integration.

Even better, Thomas' book shows us who he is, a precious human being who walked away from life in an institution and bravely learned to coexist and compensate for the often harrowing sensory issues that come with a diagnosis of autism.

This book is a must read. It is a story of survival, courage, and the strong realization that people with autism have much to contribute to this world.

Mr. McKean is to be applauded for this timeless contribution to literature on autism. I will hold this book dear for a very long time to come.

Liane Gentry Skye
author
Turn Around, Bright Eyes-Snapshots from a Voyage out of Autism's Silence

Rating:
Summary: Wish you could walk in your child with autism's shoes?
Review: "You can't know a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins," is the best quote I can come up with to sum up the impact of "Soon Will Come the Light".

Thomas McKean has presented in this book the one thing that I always wished for, but few books could offer---the ability to walk in my children with autism's shoes for a while and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of what their world looks and feels like.

McKean's writing reveals loving, gentle, brilliant man with autism, and his book is a stereotype buster. He shows us that people with autism have worth and wisdom to share with the world. He teaches us both through his inspiring gifts as a poet, and with his "no holds barred" personal thoughts on many of the current intervention trends in autism, such as auditory integration.

Even better, Thomas' book shows us who he is, a precious human being who walked away from life in an institution and bravely learned to coexist and compensate for the often harrowing sensory issues that come with a diagnosis of autism.

This book is a must read. It is a story of survival, courage, and the strong realization that people with autism have much to contribute to this world.

Mr. McKean is to be applauded for this timeless contribution to literature on autism. I will hold this book dear for a very long time to come.

Liane Gentry Skye
author
Turn Around, Bright Eyes-Snapshots from a Voyage out of Autism's Silence

Rating:
Summary: Soon Will Come the Light: A View from Inside the Autism Puzz
Review: As a teacher of students with Autism, I found this book to be very insightful. To be able to view Autism through the eyes of a person living with Autism was very helpful to me. I found his sections on sensory issues to be very informative. I loved his works of poetry at the end.

Rating:
Summary: A gift from above
Review: As the mother of an autistic child, this is a must read for any parent dealing with the heartbreaking diagnosis of Autism. Both parents and professionals will find this book to be very helpful. Thomas has so generously shared his very personal experience in order to help others understand this puzzling mystery. He has been kind enough to let us into his world, and brave enough to enter ours. He is a remarkable man with much courage, compassion, determination and sincerity. Thank you Thomas, many people will greatly benefit from your book. You are truly a gift from above.

Rating:
Summary: A gift from above
Review: As the mother of an autistic child, this is a must read for any parent dealing with the heartbreaking diagnosis of Autism. Both parents and professionals will find this book to be very helpful. Thomas has so generously shared his very personal experience in order to help others understand this puzzling mystery. He has been kind enough to let us into his world, and brave enough to enter ours. He is a remarkable man with much courage, compassion, determination and sincerity. Thank you Thomas, many people will greatly benefit from your book. You are truly a gift from above.

Rating:
Summary: Helped me Understand my son
Review: I am a mother of a four year old child boy who has Autism. I believe SOON WILL COME THE LIGHT is a must read for any parent who has a child with Autism and for anyone that works with or cares about a person with Autism. Though I have read many books by doctors and professionals that I've found helpful, I've found the very best way to learn about what my son is feeling is to hear from an adult with Autism. Thomas McKean writes candidly about his life and the challenges that he faces. He is articulate, funny and poetic. His book helped my husband and I understand why my son behaves in ways that had baffled us in the past. Mr. McKean's perspective has truly changed that way we parent our son!

Rating:
Summary: A Valuable Resource For Parents of Autistic Children.
Review: I have had the pleasure of speaking with the author on AOL and after hearing about his book, I purchased it. His personal account of his life and dealing with the realization he had autism was extremely moving. I only hope that I can remember the things he went thru, the things he felt growing up, the sensory issues he continues to deal with....and be able to apply that knowledge to understanding my son <age 3> who has autism. I want to help my son make his journey thru life in such a way that their is no pain, limited frustration and in such a way that he is confident and happy in his world. Reading this book has helped me see a glimpse of my own son's thinking. Thanks Thomas for putting such a personal glimpse of your life in words!

Rating:
Summary: A moving personal account of autism
Review: I have had the pleasure of speaking with the author on AOL and after hearing about his book, I purchased it. His personal account of his life and dealing with the realization he had autism was extremely moving. I only hope that I can remember the things he went thru, the things he felt growing up, the sensory issues he continues to deal with....and be able to apply that knowledge to understanding my son who has autism. I want to help my son make his journey thru life in such a way that their is no pain, limited frustration and in such a way that he is confident and happy in his world. Reading this book has helped me see a glimpse of my own son's thinking. Thanks Thomas for putting such a personal glimpse of your life in words!

Rating:
Summary: Soon Will Come the Light: A View from Inside the Autism Puzzle
Review: This book starts out with introductions by various acquaintances of the author, including a lot of "Wow! That autistic thing *writes*!" hoopla that rivals the current hysteria over non-speaking autistic people's writing. Still, at the time it was published, it was probably the fourth narrative-autobiographical work by an autistic person widely published in America (by this time, Temple Grandin had published a book and Donna Williams had published two). This is understandable given the time.

The real beginning of the book opens with McKean's admission into an institution. I know I've read that section dozens of times. I still can't remember much of it, which means it was probably an accurate depiction. The only thing I remember at all was that McKean achieved a higher degree of camraderie and positive socialization with other inmates than I ever did in such places. My social position, with rare exceptions, tended to be one of four categories: Tolerated, bullied, left alone, and physically isolated. But if the descriptions have made me black them out as many times as I've read them, it's a pretty good clue that they're good descriptions.

The book then picks up with his life after the institution, in which he moved around between cheap apartments and experienced various failures in his personal life. After a particularly painful breakup with a girlfriend, he checked his hospital records to see what was written about him. He discovered that they said he had a "P.D.D.", and that this basically meant autism.

The chapter on discovering autism is, to me, one of the most interesting in the book -- and one of the most personally embarrassing. I remember well what it was like, nearly fresh out of institutions and other places in which I disappointed everyone, to emerge simultaneously into a full realization that I was autistic and a throng of parents begging me to narrate my life for their convenience. I remember the endless amounts of praise I got just for saying the simplest things, and people urging me to publish this or that work or join this or that committee, all the while telling me how miraculous it was that I communicated anything at all. And this is exactly what happened to McKean. Only, at the time of writing the book, he still swallowed the saccharine praise he was getting from all corners, as well as the nonsense that he'd somehow "come out" of autism. He became a national board member of the Autism Society of America, and he was invited to speak at conferences. Instant "autistic circus act" for him, instant cringeworthy remembrance for me.

The next two chapter are interesting in a different way. Unlike later books on autism, from a time when views on what autism is and isn't have become more consolidated, early books included a lot of things that weren't strictly autistic, but arguably made the accounts more well-rounded. He lists a number of common issues in autism: sensory issues, computers, facilitated communication, and the like, and tackles them with varying degrees of expertise. Then, side by side with these, he describes "psionic sensors", auditory hallucinations, pain, and alternate realities. Whatever else may be true, it's a rare autistic person today who will admit to hearing hallucinatory voices. These chapters basically discuss personal aspects of autism as well as what professionals should be doing in terms of autistic people, and contain some good advice, some bad, most mediocre.

About the last third of the book is poetry and lyrics by the author. I've never heard the music, so I don't know if I'm qualified to evaluate the lyrics.

Throughout the whole book, there's a sense of innocence bordering on (and sometimes crossing over well into) gullibility that endears other people in the book but grates a bit on me, at least while watching the use that parents and professionals put it to. I got the sense that, at the time of writing the book, the author's sense of self-worth had been hammered flat by the world he'd lived in most of his life, and reacted to even the faintest glimmer of approval or validation with puppylike gratitude. I can remember a time when I reacted like that -- thankfully I wrote things much more erasable than books back then, or I'd be in trouble -- and hope that he's moved on by now. Because a lot of the book reads like "How professionals can make use of an autistic person with no self-esteem in a few easy steps."

I want to like this book more than I did, but that uneasy sense of the author having been used without being aware of it yet, and the parallels with similar times in my own life, creep into any attempt to like it very much. It should be read with that unsettling dynamic firmly and consciously in the reader's mind.

Rating:
Summary: Soon Will Come the Light: A View from Inside the Autism Puzzle
Review: This book starts out with introductions by various acquaintances of the author, including a lot of "Wow! That autistic thing *writes*!" hoopla that rivals the current hysteria over non-speaking autistic people's writing. Still, at the time it was published, it was probably the fourth narrative-autobiographical work by an autistic person widely published in America (by this time, Temple Grandin had published a book and Donna Williams had published two). This is understandable given the time.

The real beginning of the book opens with McKean's admission into an institution. I know I've read that section dozens of times. I still can't remember much of it, which means it was probably an accurate depiction. The only thing I remember at all was that McKean achieved a higher degree of camraderie and positive socialization with other inmates than I ever did in such places. My social position, with rare exceptions, tended to be one of four categories: Tolerated, bullied, left alone, and physically isolated. But if the descriptions have made me black them out as many times as I've read them, it's a pretty good clue that they're good descriptions.

The book then picks up with his life after the institution, in which he moved around between cheap apartments and experienced various failures in his personal life. After a particularly painful breakup with a girlfriend, he checked his hospital records to see what was written about him. He discovered that they said he had a "P.D.D.", and that this basically meant autism.

The chapter on discovering autism is, to me, one of the most interesting in the book -- and one of the most personally embarrassing. I remember well what it was like, nearly fresh out of institutions and other places in which I disappointed everyone, to emerge simultaneously into a full realization that I was autistic and a throng of parents begging me to narrate my life for their convenience. I remember the endless amounts of praise I got just for saying the simplest things, and people urging me to publish this or that work or join this or that committee, all the while telling me how miraculous it was that I communicated anything at all. And this is exactly what happened to McKean. Only, at the time of writing the book, he still swallowed the saccharine praise he was getting from all corners, as well as the nonsense that he'd somehow "come out" of autism. He became a national board member of the Autism Society of America, and he was invited to speak at conferences. Instant "autistic circus act" for him, instant cringeworthy remembrance for me.

The next two chapter are interesting in a different way. Unlike later books on autism, from a time when views on what autism is and isn't have become more consolidated, early books included a lot of things that weren't strictly autistic, but arguably made the accounts more well-rounded. He lists a number of common issues in autism: sensory issues, computers, facilitated communication, and the like, and tackles them with varying degrees of expertise. Then, side by side with these, he describes "psionic sensors", auditory hallucinations, pain, and alternate realities. Whatever else may be true, it's a rare autistic person today who will admit to hearing hallucinatory voices. These chapters basically discuss personal aspects of autism as well as what professionals should be doing in terms of autistic people, and contain some good advice, some bad, most mediocre.

About the last third of the book is poetry and lyrics by the author. I've never heard the music, so I don't know if I'm qualified to evaluate the lyrics.

Throughout the whole book, there's a sense of innocence bordering on (and sometimes crossing over well into) gullibility that endears other people in the book but grates a bit on me, at least while watching the use that parents and professionals put it to. I got the sense that, at the time of writing the book, the author's sense of self-worth had been hammered flat by the world he'd lived in most of his life, and reacted to even the faintest glimmer of approval or validation with puppylike gratitude. I can remember a time when I reacted like that -- thankfully I wrote things much more erasable than books back then, or I'd be in trouble -- and hope that he's moved on by now. Because a lot of the book reads like "How professionals can make use of an autistic person with no self-esteem in a few easy steps."

I want to like this book more than I did, but that uneasy sense of the author having been used without being aware of it yet, and the parallels with similar times in my own life, creep into any attempt to like it very much. It should be read with that unsettling dynamic firmly and consciously in the reader's mind.